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OR, 



IRELAND'S MISERIES; 



THE GRAND CAUSE, AND CURE. 



BY T1IE 

REV. EDWARD MARCUS DILL, A.M., M.D., 

MISSIONARY AGENT TO THE IRISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 



NEW YORK: 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

No. 285 BROADWAY. 

1853. 









, *^i b£- 



T. B. SMITH, STEREOTYPES, R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 

216 William Street, New York. 53 Vesey Street- 



\ 



N? 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— IRELAND'S MISERIES. 
CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL WRETCHEDNESS. 



PAGE 



Country's present appearance — Commerce — Manufac- 
ture — Agriculture — Depopulation — Evictions, &c, . 9 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FAMINE. 



Frightful mortality — Scenes of horror — Affecting inci- 
dent, <fec., 14 

CHAPTER III. 

EMIGRATION. 

Extent — Progress — Miseries — Evils: moral, political, and 
social, tfec, 16 

CHAPTER IV. 

INCREASING PROSTRATION. 

State of gentry — Farmers — Peasantry — Growth of 
pauperism — Decrease of births and marriages, &c, . 22 



IV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

SINGULAR EXCEPTION. 

PAGK 

Superiority of Ulster — In manufacture, commerce, agri- 
culture, <fec. — Object of this volume, . . . .32 



PART II.— ALLEGED CAUSES. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE PHYSICAL. 

The Country — Soil — Climate — Resources, etc. The Race 
— Celt and Saxon — Wales — Highlands — Irish mind, 
and heart, &c, 39 

CHAPTER II. 

THE POLITICAL. 

The Agitator — Natural history of agitation — O'Connell 
— Ulster, &c The Legislature — The constitution — 
Laws — Repeal — " Misrule," &,c, 63 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SOCIAL. 

Habits — Feudalism — Style — Extravagance, <fcc. Pur- 
suits — Trade — Agriculture — Rack rents — Tenant- 
right, &c, 64 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MORAL. 

Knowledge — General and religious ignorance — Super- 
stitions, <fec. &c. Virtue — Military, police, and crim- 
inal statistics — Consequent disorganization, &c. <fcc. 
Contrast in Ulster — Light — Morality, &c. &c, . 77 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RELIGIOUS. 



PAGE 



The Coincidence— Superiority of Protestantism in Eng- 
land, Scotland, Ireland's provinces, counties, parishes, 
towns, people. The Inference— the key of history 
in Ireland, Europe, (fee. (fee., 93 



PART III.— THE GRAND CAUSE. 

Basis of demonstration, .... 109 

CHAPTER I. 

ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 

The Bible in Ireland — Altar harangues— Maynooth train- 
ing — Priestly instructions — Impostures — Miracles — 
Rome the enemy of all light— Congregation of the In- 
dex—Parent of barbarism— Fruits in Ireland, (fee. (fee., 112 

CHAPTER II. 

ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 

Principles — Absolution — Confession, (fee. (fee. Irish 
Priesthood — Profane swearing — Drunkenness — Sab- 
bath-breaking— Adultery, (fee. Ac Irish People— 
Frequency of crime — Its atrocity, (fee. (fee, . . .132 

CHAPTER III. 

ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 

Her hatred of the Bible— Payments— Tortures— Lough 
Derg— Purgatory— Priestly foragings— Robberies- 
Butcheries— In Ireland and all countries— Truculent 
spirit unchanged, (fee. (fee 151 



VI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 

PAGE 

Makes mental imbeciles, social cripples, moral slaves — 
Dreadful engines of subjugation — Women — Convents 
— Confessional — Degradation — Filth — Improvidence 
— Idleness — Beggars, in Ireland and all Popish lands, 
<fec. <fec, 170 

CHAPTER V. 

ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 

Financial Curse of Ireland — Destroys prosperity — 
Robs community, <fec. &c. Physical Curse — Effect on 
soil, climate, race, <fcc. Social Curse — Paralyzes en- 
ergies, perpetuates feudalism, aggravates landlord 
tyranny, &c. Political Curse — Curses our civil bless- 
ings — Trial by jury — Elective franchise, &c. — Creates 
agitation, despotism, Ac. &c, 189 

CHAPTER VI. 

ROME CLOUDS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 

Protestant pseudo-Liberals — Paganism of Popery — Po- 
pish mummeries — A scene of devotion — Sacerdotal 
piety — The heaven of Rome — Her saints and sinners, 
&c. <fec, 212 

PART IV.— THE CURE. 

Recapitulation — " The Mystery Solved," . . . 227 
CHAPTER I. 

THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 

The Civil — The Land question — Ireland unfit for lib- 
erty — The mockery of freedom, <fec. The Educational 



»— 



CONTENTS. VU 



PAGE 

— National Board — Sectarian zealots — Godless phi- 
losophers — Insufficiency of mere education, (fee. The 
Industrial — Industrial Schemes — Advantages — De- 
fects, Ac. — The Scriptural — Touching incident — The 
two atmospheres — Power of the Bible — Its amazing 
triumphs — Glory of Britain, (fee, .... 230 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 

Philosophy of the Gospel — Indispensable to virtue, hap- 
piness, and general improvement of mankind — Atone- 
ment — Regeneration — True Catholicon — Monstrous 
folly of endowing Maynooth — Fruits of the Gospel — 
Awakens the mind — Purines the. conscience — Gives a 
heart — Elevates the whole nature — Blesses for time, 
and eternity — A word to our statesmen, . . . 257 

CHAPTER III. 

THE TREATMENT INFORMATION. 

Protestant ignorance— The practical of Rome— Its Sa- 
tanic philosophy — The eclectic system of evil — Rome's 
tactics in these lands — Blustering, cumiing — Hatred 
of, and designs on England, (fee, .... 282 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 

Rome a temporal power — The Convents — Their decoys 

— Their horrors — Our duty. Maynooth College 

Its history — Course of Instruction — Moral influence — 
Endowment — Infatuation of our rulers — Duty of the 
people, (fee. (fee, t 293 



CHAPTER V. 

THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 

PAGE 

Ireland's grand hope — Past neglect — Missionary statis- 
tics — The Irish Society — Dingle — Achill — Birr — 
" Irish Schools" — " Scriptural and Industrial Schools" 
— Awakening in Connaught, (fee. — The grand requisite 
— Revival in the Churches — Prayer — Faith — Wisdom 
— Union, (fee., 315 



CONCLUDING APPEAL. 

Alarming progress of Popery — Increase of Irish in Eng- 
land — Scotland — Australia — America, (fee. — Hope for 
Ireland — Evangelization — Emigration — Immigration, 
(fee. (fee, 335 






THE MYSTERY SOLVI D, &c 

PART I. 
THE MISERIES. 

APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY COMMERCE 

MANUFACTURES* 

The present condition of Ireland is perhaps with- 
out a parallel amongst the nations of the earth. 

Misery has long been this country's peculiar 
portion. Her history has been written with tears 
and blood. Her children are familiar with sack- 
cloth and ashes. But in God's awful providence 
she seems at length to have reached the climax of 
woe ; and is now passing through such a complication 
of miseries, as has excited the astonishment and 
pity of the world. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL wretchedness. 

The first thing that strikes the traveller, is the 
air of desolation which begins to pervade whole dis- 



10 THE MISERIES. 



tricts — especially in Munster and Connaught. As 
he wanders through these provinces, he sees half- 
decayed towns, which once were so flourishing as to 
send members to the Irish parliament. He finds 
whole villages in ruins so complete, that nothing 
remains but a few tottering wall-steads, to tell that 
the hum of life was ever there. In some cases, 
even these monuments of desolation have disap- 
peared, and the coachman points to a bare deserted 
spot, as the site of a former hamlet. And as to the 
destruction of farmsteads and cabins, he can scarce 
move in any direction but the scene appears as if 
some invading army had passed by. 

He finds, on inquiry, that this decadence had 
commenced long prior to the famine, and was only 
hastened by that fearful visitation. On the eve of 
that calamity, and while yet the tide of events flowed 
in its usual channels, Ireland contained one third 
the population, with one fourth the surface of the 
United Kingdom ; and yet her national revenue was 
not one eleventh, being £4,500,000 sterling out of 
£52,000,000. The registered tonnage of her ship- 
ping was not one twelfth, being 250.000 tons to near 
3,250.000. And the proportion of persons employed 
in her factories was one twenty-third, being, in, round 
numbers, 23,000 to 540,000 ;* while her agricultural 
condition could scarce be compared to Britain's — 

* See Thorn's Irish Statistics for 1849, pp. 54, 55, 1^*7, 
1*78, 182; Oliver and Boyd's Edinburgh Almanac for 1848. 
pp. 141, 142. 



GENERAL WRETCHEDNESS. H 

there being then in Ireland near 1,000,000 of hold- 
ings on 1 3,500,000 of acres of arable surface. And 
of these holdings, one seventh did not exceed 1 acre 
each ; one third consisted of from 1 to 5 acres ; not 
one twentieth were above 50 acres each ; and two 
thirds, at least, were wretchedly cultivated.* 

If we look to the circumstances of the population 
of that period, our results are not less remarkable. 
While the English upper classes have long been the 
wealthiest in the world, few of the Irish were even 
out of debt, and numbers were hopelessly embar- 
rassed. While the English middle classes have 
long been surrounded with comforts, Ireland can 
scarce be said to have ever had a middle class. 
And of the few that even then existed, the means 
were so slender, that often the Irish merchant was 
poorer than the English clerk ; and the Irish farmer 
would have been thankful for the food which Eng- 
lish servants threw away ; while the entire agricul- 
tural class, representing seven tenths of Ireland's 
substance, were fast sinking into poverty. How 
then, shall we compare the lower classes of both 
countries — the starved Irish peasant in his wretched 
hut, with the happy English hind in his cheerful 
cottage % More than three fourths of all the dwell- 
ings in Ireland were at that period built of mud. 
Near one half of all the families in Ireland lived in 
dwellings of but one apartment each.f Two thirds 

* See Thorn's Statistics, 1849, pp. 168, 169. 
f Census for 1841. 



12 THE MISERIES. 



of the entire population lived by manual labor, and 
subsisted on potatoes. Near one third were out of 
work, and in distress thirty weeks in the year;* 
while not less than one eighth were paupers, or on 
the very verge of pauperism. 

We think no one can read these statistics without 
being able to account for all the horrors of the 
famine of 1847. No prosperous country could be 
utterly prostrated by the failure of one crop — least 
of all, the potato — for no prosperous country depends 
upon it. It is the staple food of poverty or sloth. 
That nation must have been foundering, which such 
a calamity could so completely engulf. The above 
statistics demonstrate that Ireland ivas foundering 
— that the people were already so impoverished, as 
to be unable to bear any additional privations ; and 
many of them, indeed, so sunk in the gulf of wretch- 
edness, that the least rise of its waters was sure to 
overwhelm them. 

The census of 1851 has accordingly shown the 
disastrous effects of the famine upon Ireland. Ten 
years before, the population was 8,175,124. At the 
same rate of increase which had marked all previ- 
ous decennial periods, it should at least have been 
9,000,000 in 1851 ; and many believed it had reached 
that number in 1846. Yet it was found to be only 
6,515,794 — thus revealing the astounding fact, that 
in five years, the population of Ireland had virtually 
decreased two millions and a half, or near one 

* Third Report, Poor Inquiry Commission. 



r — ■ 

GENERAL WRETCHEDNESS. 13 

third ! This number is within about 370,000 of 
being equal to the entire population of Scotland. 
We have only, therefore, to imagine the almost total 
extinction of the Scottish nation, in order to form 
some estimate of our loss. Moreover, in the year 
1841, there were 1,384,360 dwellings in Ireland. 
According to the census of 1851, the number was 
then reduced to 1.115,007, — showing, that in the 
mean time, no less than 269,353 of all the habita- 
tions of the country had been levelled to the ground ! 
We find, from the same source of information, that 
this dreadful clearance has chiefly taken place among 
the small farmers — that humble class so graphically 
described by the poet, whose little plot 

" Just gave what life required, but gave no more." 

In 1845 there were, as already stated, near 1,000,000 
of holdings in Ireland ; and of this number, those 
which contained from 1 to 5 acres each, amounted 
to 310,436, and supported 1,862,250 individuals — 
more than one fifth of the population. The census 
of 1851 has revealed the awful fact, that near three 
fourths of this entire class have been swept away — 
there being then but 91,618 holdings, supporting 
549,708 individuals ! We find, moreover, that of 
all the holdings which were under 15 acres each, 
one half have disappeared, involving the clearance 
of 1.500,000 souls. All this in a few short years ! 
yet even now, the depopulation goes on as rapidly as 
ever. Who that has a heart can read these details 



14 THE MISERIES. 



without emotion ? Near two hundred and sev- 
enty thousand dwellings swept away ! And in 
these the pulse of affection once beat warmly ; for 
nature has endowed the peasant with feelings as well 
as the prince. To these, the poor man proudly 
brought his bride. In these, they no doubt spent 
years of humble contentment, cheered amidst their 
sorrows by each other's love. There the mother has 
smiled over her infant's cradle, and perhaps wept 
over its coffin too ; and the hardy father lias had his 
toils beguiled by the innocent prattle of his little 
ones. And there, too, have they often knelt around 
their dying embers, and in their own humble way 
and simple strains presented their evening prayer to 
heaven ! 



CHAPTER II. 



the famine. 



Such are the general statistics of our depopula- 
tion — the brevity of this sketch forbids minuter de- 
tails. It is enough to say, that of the above 2.500,- 
000. the famine destroyed about 1.000,000. and emi- 
gration has removed the remainder ; and let any one 
imagine, if he can, the scenes of woe embraced in 
these fearful figures ! During the horrors of 1847, 
our country was transformed into a grave-yard and 
a lazar-house. It was quite common to see the peo- 



THE FAMINE. 15 



pie staggering like drunken men along the roads 
from the utter exhaustion of nature, their faces and 
legs being swollen with hunger ; and pages might be 
filled with the bare record of cases the most aifect- 
ing, of starvation, pestilence, and death. Let us 
just present the reader with an instance or two. 
At Killalla, the famished creatures used to crowd 
round the house of the Rev. Mr. Rogers, wolfish 
with hunger ; and men once athletic and muscular 
would stand before his windows, take the skin which 
once covered a brawny arm. but now hung loose and 
wrinkled, and double it round the bone in order to 
prove the extent of their emaciation ! One woman 
was found stretched on the bed by the side of her 
dead husband, and after having just given birth to a 
poor wasted infant. It was not uncommon to find 
whole families dead in their cabins together. Nor 
were cases rare in which the famished creatures be- 
came deranged before expiring ; and in one such in- 
stance, the most awful of all the occurrences pre- 
dicted against the Jews, was found to have taken 
place — the delirious mother had fed on her dead in- 
fant ! Our missionaries were doomed to witness 
daily the most heart-rending scenes. The Rev. Mr. 
Brannigan one day observed a man and his wife dig- 
ging in a stubble field. He approached and inquired 
what they were doing. They told him they had five 
children, whom they had for a fortnight supported 
on cabbage and mill-dust, but that they were now 
actually starving ; that for the last two days they 



i6 THE MISERIES. 



had kept them in bed to try to sleep off the hunger ; 
and that they had that day been out from the early 
morning in quest of some wild roots, of which they 
exhibited a handful as the fruits of their protracted 
labors. Mr. Brannigan was moved, and, uttering 
some kind words, he handed them two shillings. 
This relief coming so unexpectedly on the poor man 
weakened as he was by sorrow and hunger, com- 
pletely unmanned him. and he sobbed and wept in 
the minister's face ; while his wife, still less able to 
control her feelings, clasped her husband in her arms, 
exclaiming — " My dear ! our children won't die yet." 
And yet these are mere samples. How many scenes 
more tragic still were enacted during that dreadful 
calamity, which no chronicle has ever recorded, of 
whose existence the world never heard, and over 
which no tears of sympathy were shed, except per- 
haps by some fellow-sufferers ! Nor must we forget 
that, in consequence of the partial failure of the po- 
tato ever since 1847, many districts have been suf- 
fering an annual famine, and have now, therefore, al- 
most equalled Egypt's seven years of dearth without 
its previous seven of plenty. 



CHAPTER III. 

EMIGRATION. 



For many years a large portion of Ireland's ship- 
ping trade has been mere emigration. And its ag- 



EMIGRATION. 17 



gregate amount can be best seen from the fact that, 
according to a late estimate, there are in America 
3,000.000 of native Irish, and 4,500.000 more of 
Irish descent. In other words, America now con- 
tains of inhabitants of Irish blood, 1,000,000 more 
than does Ireland itself! Even previous to the 
famine of 1847, the annual number of emigrants 
had in six years steadily risen from 40,000 to 
95,000 ; and since that time it has increased so 
prodigiously, that the Colonial Land and Emigra- 
tion Commissioners give the number emigrating in 
1851 at 279,000. The daily arrivals of emigrants 
at the port of New York alone, range from 700 to 
1000, and of these the great mass are Irish. Thus, 
after flowing westward for half a century, the stream 
of emigration, so far from diminishing, has swollen 
into a mighty flood, and the world now gazes on a 
phenomenon which can only be likened to the mi- 
grations of the Gauls or the Huns, or other wander- 
ing tribes of yore. Multitudes are flying from their 
once loved homesteads, as though Ireland were the 
scene of some physical as well as social convulsion, 
to a land which comprises all they can henceforth 
call a country ; deeming even its wild forests an 
asylum from their woes. They daily hear of the 
untimely end of thousands of their fellow-emigrants 
by shipwreck on the passage, or hardships on their 
arrival ; but so far is every other feeling overborne 
by the one desire to escape, that the most timid 
brave the deep, and the most infirm encounter the 

2 



THE MISERIES. 



hardships. Of the crowds that thus hurry along in 
this general " exodus," scarce one returns, save the 
few who come back from ill health or indolence, 
nulla vestigia retrorstim ; so that a large portion 
of the country's business arises from emigration. 
From it our railways are reaping a transient and 
ruinous harvest — the numbers continually pouring 
along the Great Southern and Western alone are 
surprising. And seacoast villages, which vessels 
were never known to touch before, ships now regu- 
larly visit for their human cargoes. Churches and 
chapels are fast being emptied. The country begins 
to feel the fearful drain, and faints from excessive 
depletion ; yet on goes the increasing tide, and on it 
promises to go. In many cases the wail of the emi- 
grants who crowd our ports is not so heart-rending 
as that of their friends whom poverty compels to 
remain behind ; and had the people but the means 
of getting away, whole districts would rise and take 
their departure. Even the warmest advocates of 
the clearance-system begin to feel alarmed. Instead 
of a competition for land, as formerly, there has at 
length commenced a competition for tenants ; and 
some are seriously speaking of the necessity for par- 
liamentary interference with the emigrant, to save 
the country from complete depopulation — it being a 
matter truly of easy enough calculation, that at the 
same increasing rate of emigration, a very few years 
indeed would leave Ireland a lonesome solitude. 
Here is a state of things as mournful as it is un- 



EMIGRATION. 19 



paralleled. We refer not so much to the previous 
dreadful hardships which such a general flight im- 
plies ; when, by a people proverbially attached to 
home, a Canadian log-hut is now deemed a blessing ; 
when the spell of country is so completely broken, 
that America, once their last resource, is now the 
goal of their hopes ; and what used to be dreaded 
as a land of exile, is now sighed for as a place of 
refuge. Nor do we refer so much to the anguish 
endured by our warm-hearted countrymen when 
thus torn from their humble, but yet beloved home- 
steads ! What this must be, the heart-rending cries 
of the emigrants who throng our quays but too pain- 
fully show ; or their still more bitter wail, when 
taking their last farewell of those homely abodes 
which were endeared to them by a thousand recol- 
lections ! Not surely that these woes are to be 
overlooked or underrated ; on the contrary, they 
must command the deepest sympathy of our nature. 
He cannot be a man who could witness such scenes 
without emotion, or feeling all that our native poet 
has so touchingly expressed — 

'• Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day 
That called them from their native walks away ; 
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last ; 
And shuddering still to face the distant deep, 
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep." 

Most affecting of all is it to see amongst those 



20 THE MISERIES. 



mournful groups, not the young and active merely, 
but many a poor old man who had hoped to lay his 
bones in his fathers' sepulchre : — to see trembling 
old age thus turned out on the world when almost 
leaving it ; doomed to recommence life's pilgrimage 
at its close ; and forced to encounter hardships fit 
only for elastic youth, and beneath which gray hairs 
are all but sure to sink. But we refer not now to 
these calamities. 

We allude rather to the moral and social evils of 
this unnatural state of things. For many years it 
has been the very flower of the people who have 
been leaving — our enterprising upright yeomanry — 
who were not content to live on dry potatoes. It is 
the bones and sinews of the country we have been 
losing, who, besides contributing their labor and skill 
to America's national wealth, have been carrying 
with them each from £10 to £1000. By the depar- 
ture of this class it is reckoned that since 1845 the 
country has lost in cash alone about half a million 
sterling. Thus Ireland has for years been little 
else than a nursery ground for America, whence the 
hardiest plants are being annually removed, while 
the least thriving and healthy are left behind. The 
cream of the nation has thus for years been flowing 
off : like some liquid of which the purer portion at 
the top has been repeatedly drawn away, tilL the 
very sediment itself begins at length to run off. 
Such has been the draining process of Irish emigra- 
tion, on which Britain has looked with indifference, 



EMIGRATION. 21 



till now the best of the people are gone to rear cities 
beneath a foreign banner, and all that remains for 
England's proud flag to wave over, is the pauperized 
and prostrated remnant. 

Nor are the political bearings of the case to be 
wholly disregarded. It were idle to deny that 
America now holds that place in the hearts of most 
of our countrymen which England ought to possess. 
Hearken to their conversation, and America is the 
theme of their eulogies ; while England is spoken 
of in terms of invidious contrast, and in a spirit of 
moody discontent. Never was this fact more clearly 
proved than during the American ambassador's late 
visit to Ireland. While at a recent festival in Lim- 
erick, the health of our beloved Queen was received 
with hisses by some of the party, the people every- 
where gave Mr. Abbot Lawrence a royal reception, 
and flocked around him as though he had been a 
visitant from some better world. In truth, the 
hearts of the people are now in America, Enter 
almost any dwelling, and the great aim of the very 
servants is to save what will " take them out of this 
country" to that land of promise. Converse with 
our struggling farmers, and the last hope of many is 
that their sons, who have gone before, may be spared 
to send for themselves and their families, and enable 
them to exchange the condition of British subjects 
for that of American citizens. Follow that youth to 
those distant shores, and you find him sustained 
amid their summer droughts and winter snows by 



22 THE MISERIES. 



the hope of soon rescuing his revered parent from 
hunger and " oppression," and welcoming him to 
that " land of liberty" and wealth. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INCREASING PROSTRATION. 

Such is the history of the millions we have lost — 
let us now glance at the state of the millions who 
remain. It would be some consolation for the loss 
of the former, if, as many hoped, it would have con- 
duced to the good of the latter. According to our 
over-population theorists, Ireland was like some over- 
crowded ship; and what was chiefly necessary to 
save her from sinking, was simply to lighten her of 
her human cargo. Well, this has been done, and to 
their hearts' content — has it enabled her to weather 
the tempest? 

Look to our upper classes, and how many of those 
who were embarrassed in 1846 are absolute bank- 
rupts now ! Their property has so fast been passing 
through the Encumbered Estates' Court, that 2000 
petitions have already been presented, of which 
1600 have been fiated ; and yet it is the opinion of 
many that the labors of that court are only com- 
mencing. You now pass by numbers of decaying 
mansions which were once the homes of splendid 
hospitality ; you see their magnificent demesnes neg- 



INCREASING PROSTRATION. 23 



lected, and their various monuments of elegance 
fast going to ruin. And you find the only tenant of 
their Jonely halls to be, perhaps some Chancery 
keeper, or else some old caretaker of the family, who 
entertains you with stories of its ancient " grandeur." 
Some of these dwellings have been turned into poor- 
houses— sad emblem of our country's state! — and 
those who were once their lords are now penniless 
exiles in distant lands, or earning a pittance in some 
department of the public service. The sons of sev- 
eral of our gentry have been glad to enter the con- 
stabulary as common policemen, and a few at least 
are now private soldiers. A baronet is this moment a 
common turnkey in a prison, and at least one gentleman 
of high family has been discovered in a poorhouse ! 
There is something peculiarly affecting in these facts. 
By a merciful arrangement of Providence, those who 
have been cradled in hardships are for that very 
reason best fitted to endure them : but it is pitiful 
to think of hundreds in actual want who were reared 
as tenderly as any of our readers, and whose infant 
locks the rude winds of heaven were scarce ever per- 
mitted to toss. We have had applications from the 
daughters of gentlemen, couched in terms enough to 
make the heart bleed, begging to be made teachers 
of our industrial schools on £20 a-year. One of our 
missionaries was some time since sent for to visit a 
reduced lady who was reported to be dying. He 
found her in a wretched dwelling, and sinking mainly 
from sheer privation ; and the only relics of former 



24 THE MISERIES. 



years he could see, were a riding habit and a silver- 
mounted whip, which belonged to a beloved daughter ! 
And the most affecting feature of the case is, the 
shifts to which these persons frequently resort in or- 
der to conceal their distress. In one case, the author 
accidentally discovered the starving condition of a 
gentleman with a large family, who had held a high 
situation in the Customs ; and having at length so 
far gained his confidence as to induce him to make 
known his wants, he learned amongst other things 
that the only covering which the gentleman and his 
wife had over them at night was an old green baize 
cloth to which he pointed on the table before him ! 

Look now for an instant to our middle class 
— or rather to that class which in Ireland comes 
nearest to what is meant by this term, and embraces 
not only our merchants, shopkeepers, and higher 
agriculturists, but our traders, farmers, and private 
householders, of respectable character, but limited 
means. There is scarcely any better index of the 
condition of this class, as well indeed as of all who 
stand between it and our humblest peasantry, than 
the state of our savings' banks. Now, in 1845 the 
number of depositors in the savings' banks of Ireland 
was 96,422 ; and the amount deposited, £2,921.581 ; 
whereas in the year 1850 the number of depositors 
had fallen to 47,987, and the amount deposited to 
£1,291,798! 

Another most important indication of a country's 
prosperity or decline, is the amount of its imports 



DECREASING PROSTRATION. 25 

and exports. Now, in 1845, when we had a popula- 
tion of 8,500,000. our exports in grain alone were 
worth £4.500,000 sterling; yet, in 1850, with only 
6,500.000 of a population to feed, the value of our 
corn exports was but £1.500,000 sterling; — in other 
words, this principal source of our wealth had, in 
the above brief period, fallen away two thirds ! Nor 
has this decline been confined to our grain trade. 
Our exports in cows and pigs amounted in 1846, to 
above £4.500,000 sterling ; while, in 1850, they had 
fallen away to £2,200.000, or less than one half. 
And when it is recollected that seven tenths of Ire- 
land's wealth is agricultural, these figures but too 
plainly demonstrate the rapidity of her decline. 

If next we look to the private circumstances of 
the farmers, we know that their live stock is one of 
the most important items, and sources, too, of their 
wealth. Every one knows that much of the value 
of their farms depends on their ability to stock them 
well. Now, in 1841, the average of live stock on 
each holding under fifteen acres, was £9, and the 
total value on all the farms of this extent in Ireland, 
was, in round numbers, £10.500,000 sterling; while, 
in 1851, the average value of live stock on each had 
fallen to £6 10s., showing that more than one third 
of this source of our national wealth has also disap- 
peared. ■ And it has been truly affecting to mark, 
in so many farmers' dwellings, those sure and steady 
strides of poverty which the foregoing statistics indi- 
cate ; to see, first of all, how the farmer's little sav- 



26 THE MISERIES. 



ings were gradually drawn from the savings' bank 
till all was gone — then how his cattle were sold, one 
by one, till frequently the last cow disappeared — 
then how his household furniture itself went, piece 
by piece, and the very apparel of the family began 
to be sold or pawned ; and how the long-maintained, 
but fruitless struggle, was finally closed by the poor 
man giving up his farm on which his fathers had 
dwelt for generations, and mournfully bending his 
steps to the poorhouse or the sea-port. The last 
five years have hence been unexampled for the num- 
ber of auctions and other sales ; and when so many 
were selling, and so few able to buy, the sacrifices 
often made at these were, of course, enormous. Nor 
have the pawnbrokers been less busily employed 
than the auctioneers. We have known even their 
yards and outhouses to be filled with articles from 
their surrounding neighborhoods. And in some 
cases they have suffered from the very excess of 
their stores, so many have been pawning and so few 
purchasing ! 

Of course, there are many exceptions to this 
general decline, both in our middle and upper 
classes. We speak of the majority, though we fear 
it is the large majority ; for if so many signs of dis- 
tress appear in those ranks of Irish society whose 
fondness for keeping up an appearance is so prover- 
bial, and whose dread of being thought poor is so 
great, that they would almost rather starve than let 
their wants be known, we cannot but conclude that, 



r 



INCREASING PROSTRATION. 



27 



were we admitted behind the scenes, we would dis- 
cover an amount of privation which would more than 
justify the picture we have drawn. 

If, then, such is the condition even <»f our gentry 
and yeomanry, what can we expect amongst those 
lower grades from which our vast armies of paupers 
are chiefly recruited ? Perhaps our poor-law statis- 
tics will form the best answer to this question. Let 
the reader just look at the subjoined table.* which 
marks the progress of our pauperism, with all its 
ruinous expenditure, for 1 1 short years. From it 
he will find that, whereas in 1841, the numbers 
relieved were 31,000, and the cost of relief was 
£110.000: in 1849, the numbers relieved were no 
less than 932,000, and the cost of relief near £2,- 
200,000 ; — that is to say. for eight years the scale 
continues to ascend till the number of paupers has 
increased thirtyfold, and the cost of relieving them 



Year. 


Expenditure. 


1841 . 


. . £110,278 


1842 . 


281,233 


1843 . 


244,374 


1844 . 


271,334 


1845 . 


. . 316,025 


1846 . 


435,001 


1847 . 


803.686 


1848 . . 


. 1,835,634 


1849 . . 


. 2,177,651 


1850 . . 


. 1,430,108 


1851 . . 


. 1,110,892 



Paupers. 
31,108 
87,604 
87,898 
105.358 
114,205 
243,933 
417,139 
610,463 
932,284 
805,702 
768,570 
Thom's Statistics, 1852, p. 203. 



28 THE MISERIES. 



twentyfold ! Indeed, in 1848, the number receiving 
relief, including out-door paupers, exceeded 2,000 - 
000, or a fourth of the population ; and if the last 
two years exhibit a diminution, we fear this is to be 
ascribed to something else than returning prosperity. 
A depopulation of 2.500.000 should alone go far to 
explain the phenomenon ; while the country is so 
fast sinking beneath a load of poor-rates, that in 
several poorhouses it is found impossible to accom- 
modate the paupers of the district ; and those who 
find admittance, in many cases perish in such num- 
bers from their miserable maintenance, that they 
begin to shun the poorhouse as a sepulchre. In two 
houses alone, those of Ennistymon and Kilrush, 
there died in the year ending March, 1851, 3,028 
paupers, being at the rate of 4 deaths a day in the 
one house, and A\ in the other ! The state of our 
poorhouses, therefore, is no certain criterion of the 
state of our pauperism. Some of our Unions are 
insolvent, and many are in debt ; while the poor-rate 
is so fast hastening the general decay, that a num- 
ber of the rate-payers of one year are uniformly 
found among the paupers of the next. The poor- 
houses built only 12 years ago, with ample accom- 
modation for the estimated wants of the time, have 
in many places been found so inadequate as to have 
added to them three and four auxiliary ivorJJtouscs. 
A large portion of the town of Millstreet is at pres- 
ent thus occupied by paupers ; yet our poorhouse 
accommodation is still so deficient, that we fear the 



INCREASING PROSTRATION. 29 



foregoing table scarce indicates three fourths of the 
existing pauperism of the country. 

This prodigious amount of pauperism, embracing 
near one sixth of the population, is yet but too easily 
accounted for by a glance at the state of the peas- 
antry. While the average wages of the English 
laborer is abcftit Is 6c/. per day. that of the Irish 
laborer is about 6c/. : it occasionally rises to 10c/. and 
Is. ; it is often as low as 3d. and 4c/. ; and, in the 
slack seasons, numbers are content to work for their 
food. We have seen that, for weeks together, they 
are unemployed : and in the west particularly the 
labor market is so wretched, that you will see them 
bringing ass's loads of turf and of chickweed for 
several miles into town, and selling them for \d. or 
Id., and a messenger will gladly travel 10 or 12 
miles for 6c/. Their food is of the poorest descrip- 
tion. Before the famine, it consisted chiefly of po- 
tatoes, with sometimes milk, often herrings, rarely 
meat, and frequently nothing ; but since the famine, 
it largely consists of Indian meal stirabout, and this 
frequently but twice a-day : and most thankful are 
some of them to get even this. We have known 
them to live for weeks on boiled turnips or cabbage ; 
and by the seaside you will see women daily dispersed 
along the strand in quest of mussels or limpets, or 
whatever else they can find. You examine their 
dwellings, and as you gaze on those wretched hovels, 
with their straw roofs rotten and leaky, their floors 
soaked with damp, and the green glut from the thatch 



30 TIIE MISERIES. 



often streaking their walls, you wonder how human 
beings can possibly exist in them ! In truth, their 
accumulated hardships have, since the famine, wrought 
a melancholy change on this once hardy race. The 
children are now generally wasted and sallow, the 
parents have a famished look, disease is much more 
frequent, and longevity is daily becoming rarer. There 
are very few cabins which have not, within the last 
five years, been scenes of sickness or death ; and you 
have only to enter and inquire for some parent or 
child, to be pointed to a wasted patient on a sickbed, 
or to the neighboring graveyard. Hence the num- 
ber of orphans is now quite remarkable. You will 
meet them by scores in the poorhouses and begging 
along the roads ; and we fear it is this mournful fact 
which, in a great measure, accounts for another far 
more deplorable — that juvenile prostitution has of 
late been increasing. 

Nor has the distress of our peasantry failed to 
show itself in other affecting forms. It is indeed 
the last symptom of an expiring country and a fam- 
ished people, when not only is the voice of the 
bridegroom and of the bride ceasing to be heard 
therein, but even that of the new-born babe. Yet, 
since the year 1847, the annual number of marriages 
in Ireland is reckoned to have decreased one third, 
and the number of births to have proportionally de- 
clined ; while in many cases the wasted appearance 
of both mother and offspring is truly affecting to 
behold, and the powers of nature have been so far 



INCREASING PROSTRATION. 31 

exhausted, that abortions are of frequent occurrence. 
It is also asserted, that in some districts lunacy it- 
self is increasing. In a word, life has become with 
many a desperate struggle to live. Even our enor- 
mous poor-rates, while beggaring the country, have 
not yet left our paupers the alternative of a poor- 
house or a grave ; for deaths from starvation are still 
of frequent occurrence. Nay, even reduced below 
the alternative of flying to a foreign land or dying in 
their own, it has been proved that several prisoners 
committed the crimes they stood charged with, in 
order to obtain the privilege of transportation. 

We shall now only add the marvellous fact, that 
all this decay has been proceeding in an age which, 
for general advancement, has been termed the age 
of wonders, and that Ireland has been thus fearfully 
retrograde in the very swiftest hour of the world's 
onward march. During the same period in which 
Britain has been rising to the highest pinnacle of 
greatness, Ireland, by her side, and beneath the 
same sceptre, has been sinking to this deep degrada- 
tion : until now, the one is the mistress and the 
other the mendicant of the world ; the name of the 
one is a glory commanding the respect of the na- 
tions, and that of the other a byeword commanding 
at best their commiseration. In the same time in 
which America has been transformed from a wild 
forest of Indians into a land of unparalleled pros- 
perity, our people have grown so utterly wretched as 
to fly to her backwoods as to an asylum, to accept 



32 THE MISERIES. 



of her menial employments as a boon, and after be- 
ing in many cases masters at home, to be thankful 
for the post of hired servants there. And what 
crowns the case is, that not only has this national 
consumption bid defiance to every form of treat- 
ment, but it seems rather to have grown worse under 
each successive remedy, and now appears likely to 
be arrested by nothing but dissolution. Each new 
measure has only blasted our hopes — each fresh 
loan has but increased our burdens — each remedial 
experiment has miserably failed, and often proved a 
curse rather than a cure : — until now our social mal- 
adies have reached such a height, that unless in some 
way arrested by God's gracious providence, in a few 
more years our country's funeral dirge must inevi- 
tably be heard. 



CHAPTER V. 



SINGULAR EXCEPTION. 



To this general scene of wretchedness we must 
notice a partial, yet remarkable exception. The 
province of Ulster has long presented so strange a 
contrast to the rest of Ireland, as to have elicited 
the surprise even of continental tourists. Though 
warmed by the same sun, and watered by the same 
skies, this one province has prospered while the rest 
have declined ; and you have only to cross the boun- 



SINGULAR EXCEPTION. 33 



dary lino which divides them, to find a comparative 
desert on the one side and garden on the other. 

If you look to Ulster's condition prior to the fam- 
ine, you find it has long been the home of comfort 
and industry, and the headquarters of our commerce 
and manufactures. Of the 22,59 1 persons employed 
in our factories in 1846, nearly four fifths belonged 
to our northern province ; the proportions being — 
Ulster, 1 7,304 ; Leinster, 3,732; Minister, 1,155 ; 
and in Connaught not a single one. To give one 
example of the relative progress of our northern and 
southern towns. In 1786, Belfast was an unimpor- 
tant place with a wretched harbor, and the revenue 
of its port was but £1,500,000 sterling. In 1838 it 
contained 50 factory steam-engines; in 1841, its 
mills for spinning linen yarn alone amounted to 25, 
one of the principal employing 800 hands ; in 1846, 
the Tidal Harbor Commissioners pronounced it " the 
first town in Ireland for enterprise and commercial 
prosperity ;" and in 1850, its port revenues had in- 
creased to £29,000,000. On the other hand, Kil- 
kenny was an important city when Belfast was a vit 
lage ; it once had several factories, 1 1 water-wheels, 
and such a carpet manufactory that Kidderminster 
petitioned for repeal of the Union. In 1834, Mr. 
Inglis saw one man in the principal factory which 
once employed 200 ; and he adds, that of the 1 1 
water-wheels one was going, not for the purpose of 
driving the machinery, but to prevent it from rot- 
ting ! 3 



34 THE MISERIES. 



If you next turn to the period of the famine, those 
scenes of horror which were so common in the south 
were scarcely known in the north of Ireland; and 
many of those who did perish there were natives of 
Connaught and Leinster who poured into Ulster in 
quest of food. Of £10,000,000 of relief sent to Ire- 
land at that period by public and private charity, 
scarce £1,000,000 is supposed to have reached Ulster; 
while that province actually contributed large sums 
for the relief of the south and west, and has ever 
since paid the rate-in-aid tax for the same end. 
Finally, if you look to its condition since 1847, you 
find that those calamities which have prostrated 
Minister and Connaught have fallen upon it with but 
mitigated severity. While Ireland has lost one 
fifth of its inhabitants, Munster almost one fourth, 
and Connaught nearly one third, Ulster has not lost 
one-sixth. Its capital, Belfast, which in 1841 con- 
tained above 75,000 inhabitants, had risen in 1851 
to near 100,000, showing an increase of upwards of 
24,000 ! In fact, the population of Ulster is now 
relatively greater than it was before the famine — 
consisting in 1841 of above one fourth, and in 1851 
near one third of Ireland's inhabitants. Of the 
government advances made during the famine, the 
entire of the country owes near £4,500,000 : of this 
Ulster owes little more than £500,000, or one eighth 
of the debt to near one third of the population. Its 
pauperism is not half so g/eat as that of the other 
provinces ; its proportion of the entire poor-rates of 



SINGULAR EXCEPTION. 35 

the country being also about an eighth. In a word, 
you find that Ulster, though exposed to every ordi- 
nary influence felt by Minister and Connaught, has 
scarce known the miseries which have given "them 
such fearful notoriety. So soon as you enter that 
province, the entire aspect of the country changes. 
All around assumes that air of social health which is 
so easily perceived yet so difficult fully to describe. 
You have left behind the region of filthy cabins and 
swarming beggars, ruined villages and deserted farms ; 
and you enter a territory of comparatively rich cul- 
tivation, studded with comfortable dwellings and 
thrifty towns. And you cannot but feel that, from 
whatever cause, Ulster is at least fifty years ahead 
of its sister provinces in all the true elements of na- 
tional progress ; and in its general aspect, so much 
more resembles Britain than Ireland, that one could 
almost fancy some physical convulsion to have sev- 
ered it from the one island and attached it to the 
other. 

Such is Ireland's temporal condition. We now 
proceed to that question which has been so frequently 
asked and so variously answered — What is the cause 
of such fearful wretchedness, particularly of the 
marvellous contrast we have traced between one of 
our provinces and all the rest ? What makes Ire- 
land a desert and Ulster its only oasis 1 or how came 
the Newry mountains to form the boundary line be- 
tween the abodes of comfort and the haunts of woe ? 



36 THE MISERIES. 



On this subject how much has been written, yet 
how little seems to be understood ! Each successive 
writer has found out the u true cause" of our mise- 
ries, and of course the infallible specific : yet these 
have been endlessly various and often directly op- 
posite. In truth, to Ireland's other misfortunes this 
also has been added, that she has long been the 
practice-ground of social and political theorists. 
Never was laboratory tjtae scene of more experiments, 
nor patient the victim of blinder quackery. Until 
now the only parallel to her case seems that of the 
woman who spent all her living on physicians, " and 
was nothing the better, but rather grew worse." The 
result, of course, has been calamitous. Not only 
has a vast amount of talent and treasure been wasted 
on Ireland which, if wisely applied, might ere now, 
under God, have achieved her salvation, but not a 
little of what was meant as medicinal has proved ab- 
solutely poisonous ; and, untaught by the experience 
of the past, many of our most intelligent philanthro- 
pists and statesmen are to this very hour hanging 
over our expiring country, — perplexed about the 
treatment, because ignorant, of the grand disease. 

How long and anxiously have we looked for some 
one to arise and dispel this ignorance forever ! — 
some one who would trace out the cause of Ireland's 
miseries with such clearness and candor, as would 
leave ignorance nothing to mistake, and bigotry 
nothing to say. No such person having as yet ap- 
peared, and our country meanwhile sinking at a 



SINGULAR EXCEPTION. 37 



rate so fearful, a very humble individual has been 
urged to undertake a task which can no longer wait 
for an abler pen. Nothing but the emergency of 
the case could have secured his consent. But what 
would be presumption in one class of circumstances 
becomes imperative duty in another ; and in a crisis 
like the present, diffidence should yield to higher 
feelings, and the most obscure emerge from the 
shade, if he can but render his country the least 
possible service. 

We crave, then, the reader's candid perusal of the 
following pages, whatever political or religious creed 
he may hold. We would especially bespeak for 
them our countrymen's calm attention. They are 
penned by one who can yield to none in devotion to 
his country and distress for her sorrows ; who has 
spent the best years of his life in seeking her good ; 
whose heart has often bled for her woes and throb- 
bed for her future enlargement. He entreats them 
to lay aside, at least for one brief hour, the spirit 
of party ; and if not on the high ground of their 
common country, at least on that of their com- 
mon calamities, make this small sacrifice at the 
shrine of reason. Common woes and dangers have 
united the deadliest foes. The most hostile broth- 
ers have embraced over a parent's dying bed. And, . 
oh ! shall ive ever permit the historian to tell, that 
even the grave, which entombed so many of our 
countrymen, could not bury along with them our 
feuds and dissensions ; that these alone were flour- 



38 THE MISERIES. 



ishing, when all else around us decayed ; that amid 
the throes of our expiring country, we could not 
suspend our suicidal strife ; and therefore that her 
death was at least hastened by her own children's 
hands ? 

* # * We may observe once for all, that we have 
found it impossible, in so small a volume, to notice 
the numerous sources from which our facts and 
statistics are derived. But the reader may rely on 
their correctness. 



PART II. 

ALLEGED CAUSES 

The alleged causes of Ireland's miseries may all 
be classed under the six following heads. Some 
have ascribed them to something in her physical 
state ; some, to her political condition ; others, to 
her social ; others still, to her moral ; while a fifth 
class has attributed them to her religious character ; 
and a sixth has ascribed them, in part, to each of 
these. Let us briefly inquire how far each theory 
is accordant with truth. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PHYSICAL. 



This branch of our subject divides itself into the 
People, and the Land of their Birth. Does the 
cause, then, rest with Ireland or the Irish ? Is the 
ground cursed with sterility, or the air with pesti- 
lence 1 Is the climate bleak, or the coast inhospi- 
table? Is the island a Sahara or a Campagna dj 



40 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



Roma ? " Or is the now fashionable theory the cor- 
rect one, that the race is hopelessly degenerate and 
spent — that, with them, " misfortune is another name 
for misconduct" — and that the Irishman, wherever 
he goes, is pursued by the curse of Cain or Cainaan, 
and for similar reasons 1 

The Country. — Is the cause, or any part of it, 
found in the country ? The question scarce deserves 
an answer. Ireland is as much celebrated for beauty 
as misfortune. Volumes have been written on its 
scenery and resources. Swarms of tourists are 
annually lured to its shores. Poetry, often extrava 
gant, speaks but sober truth in styling it the 
" Emerald Isle." And it is the unanimous verdict 
of mankind, that in all the requisites of national 
greatness, the entire island, but especially its south- 
ern province, is perhaps unequalled beneath the 
sun. 

In truth, here Nature has lavished her stores. If 
we turn to the climate, Heaven never blessed a land 
with more genial skies. Its temperature rarely falls 
below 30° or rises above 75° ; and thus it is pre- 
served alike from the rigors of northern and the 
burning .heats of southern climes. Its atmosphere 
is peculiarly free from disease, and altogether so 
pure, that till reduced by late hardships, its people 
were proverbially healthy ; and so mild are the win- 
ter months of the south particularly, that the invalid 
takes shelter in its coves from the less kindly airs 



THE PHYSICAL. 41 



of Scotland and Ulster. If you look to the soil, it 
is proverbially fertile. Its fields wave with the 
finest harvests. Its very mountains are verdure to 
their summits. Notwithstanding its vast tracts of 
waste land, and the wretched cultivation of much 
that is reclaimed, Ireland exports twice as much 
provisions as it retains for its own population. The 
mere trade in its agricultural produce employs a 
fleet of steamers most part of the year ; and you can 
scarce sit down to a table in Great Britain on which 
you will not find the produce of its soil. 

Nor is it less bountifully provided with other 
elements of wealth. It is intersected by the finest 
rivers. Its bowels teem with the richest minerals. 
Its coasts swarm with shoals of fish. It contains 
some of the best harbors in the world ; and .such are 
its engineering facilities, that there is scarcely a 
tunnel in all its railways. While, as to still higher 
commercial advantages, it stands out on the world's 
highway — the Atlantic — with the fleets of nations 
daily passing by; and between the old world and 
the new, as though designed to be their link of com- 
munication, and enjoy the blessings of both. In a 
word, on this wretched country the God of Nature 
has showered his bounties so profusely, that one can 
scarce help thinking it was designed to be a garden 
of plenty instead of a land of paupers. You would 
say, that if on earth there was a spot which He had 
graciously exempted from the full effects of the 
curse on '-man's first disobedience," it was this; and 



42 ALLEGED CAUSES 

that nothing but some malignant agency could pos- 
sibly have hindered it from becoming the model and 
envy of the nations, instead of being their prostrate 
suppliant. 

Therefore, the country's physical condition, so fai 
from accounting in the slightest for her miseries, 
makes them, in truth, more unaccountable. And 
the contrast between Ulster and Munster, as well 
as between Britain and Ireland, instead of being 
thus explained, becomes more perplexing than ever. 
Plants which even in England require a hot-house, 
flourish in Ireland in the open air ; whilst Scotland 
is largely indebted to her even for poultry and vege- 
tables. And as to other advantages, Nature has 
given to the south of Ireland the finest river in the 
three kingdoms — the Shannon ; and the most mag- 
nificent harbor — Queenstown. Who would compare 
to the former the Bann, or even the Clyde, or to 
the latter the slimy port of Belfast, or the sandy 
entrance to Liverpool ? Whatever u English jeal- 
ousy" may be thought to have denied us, it has ever 
conceded that Ireland is naturally the finest of the 
British isles ; and we shall only add, that Munster 
is confessedly the richest portion of the island. The 
farther you travel south, both clime and soil become 
more kindly. The snow-storms which visit Ulster, 
are scarce ever seen in Munster ; and the " trap" 
hills of Antrim can ill be compared to the " golden 
vales" of Tipperary ; while the same universal award 
which has conferred on Ireland the title of the 



THE PHYSICAL. 43 



" Green Isle," and on Munster that of " the sunny 
south," has pronounced Ulster the "black north," 
and Scotland the "barren rock." 

The Race. — Is the cause found in the natural char- 
acter of the people ? Is the Irishman more sparingly 
furnished than the Englishman, or the southern than 
his -northern brother, with those qualities of mind 
and heart which form the elements of a noble race 7 
Such is the favorite theory of some. Because our 
poor countryman has yielded to influences sufficient 
to degrade the finest race, degradation has been all 
but pronounced his normal state. Because he has 
not been more than human, he has almost been con- 
sidered less. His worst misfortune has been thus 
converted into a fault, and he has been exposed to 
general scorn for the very thing which composed his 
strongest claim to general sympathy. The reproach 
which should have been heaped on the authors of his 
shame has been lavished on their injured victim, 
until now his very name is a byeword ; you will hear 
even the expression in Christian circles, " a blessed 
land but a cursed people ;" and the words of one of 
our finest sacred melodies have been uncharitably 
applied to him — 

" Where every prospect pleases, 
And only man is vile." 

The doctrine just amounts to this — that the blood 
of the Saxon is naturally purer than that of the 



44 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

Celt ; aiid its advocates consider it at once the most 
just and charitable explanation of Ireland's wretch- 
edness, that the Irish, as such, have some hereditary 
blemish, which we may pity but can scarce hope to 
cure. The shortest refutation of this doctrine would 
be to trace the distribution of the two great families 
of which the Celt and the Saxon are themselves but 
branches — to appeal, for example, to Celtic France, 
the second nation in Europe ; to show how much 
England herself owes to the arms and arts of the 
Celtic Normans ; and to prove, besides, the utter 
impossibility of knowing, at this time of day, what 
blood is Saxon and what is Celtic, in a race so mixed 
as the British. 

But we are content to meet our theorists on their 
own ground ; and, assuming that the Irish are Celts, 
and the English Saxons, we shall demonstrate the 
falseness of their hypothesis. If they mean no more 
than that the Irish as a nation have long been exposed 
to influences which are found in the course of ages 
to degrade a people, this is not to explain the mys- 
tery of Ireland's woes, but only to remove it a little 
.further ofF; in truth, it is virtually to give up their 
theory, for this position none will deny ; and the 
true question then is — What are these degrading in- 
fluences ? But if they mean that there is in Irish 
blood a deeper natural taint than what we all inherit 
from our first progenitors, we pronounce the theory 
false and absurd. The blue-eyed Saxon and the 
black-eyed Celt are children of the same common 



THE PHYSICAL. 45 



parent ; and the corruption which has flowed from 
that original fountain, has been shared alike by all 
its streams. The history of every race has proved 
that none is 'naturally worse than another, but that 
each in its turn has risen and suDk according to the 
influences to which it has been exposed ; and to 
charge the evils of Ireland on the Celt as a race, 
proves not the guilt of the accused, but the ignorance 
of the accuser. In the middle ages, when Saxon 
lands were shrouded in darkness, Ireland, then most 
purely Celtic, was the seat of learning for Europe ; 
it is now when the least Celtic that she has grown 
most wretched ; and this shifting on the social scale 
would itself demonstrate, that her children's degra- 
dation springs not from anything within them, but 
something from ivithout. Again, the midland coun- 
ties of Munster and Connaught contain a mixed 
race of Saxon, Norman, and Danish blood : while 
the pure aboriginal Celt is chiefly found in their 
western regions, — yet the fact is notorious, that it is 
these midland counties which are the chief scenes of 
blood, and those western regions which have the best 
excuse for poverty. Morever, on the Highlands of 
Scotland and the mountains of Wales, we find two 
other branches of the Celtic family ; and who hears 
of their hills being drenched with the blood of mur- 
der 1 Where can you find over all their wide moors 
assassin-clubs nightly plotting crime, or ruffians 
Swearing away innocent life for hire, or that general 
conspiracy against law and justice, which has filled 



46 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



Ireland with police and military ? No ; the British 
Celts are 'as proverbial for peace as is their Irish 
brother for disturbance. The most orderly sailor 
who enters our ports is the Welshman, and our 
Queen yearly seeks the Scottish Highlands as the 
most quiet retreat in her kingdom. 

You say that these British Celts are at least like 
the Irish, poor and indolent 1 We ask how moun- 
taineers can well be otherwise. Is it on the stormy 
side of Snowdon or the Grampians you would look 
for wealth or bustling enterprise ? — or is it such 
dreary moorlands you would compare with one of 
the finest islands of the sea 1 Why, it seems almost 
as necessary that the British Celts should be poor 
and slothful, as that the Irish should be wealthy and 
diligent ; yet they have not a tithe of the sloth and 
poverty we find in Ireland. The traveller can tes- 
tify how cultivation is creeping up their bleakest 
mountains, while with us the process is reversed, and 
the wilderness is creeping down npon our finest vales. 
And though in 1847 the potato failed with them as 
with us, yet who heard of their hills covered with the 
dead and dying — of millions granted them from the 
treasury — of months spent with their case in parlia- 
ment — or swarms of their beggars disturbing the 
world 1 

How, then, can race explain the difficulty, when 
we find such difference in tribes of the same race 1 
Yes, and strangest of all, in the same tribes at dif- 
ferent periods. Time was when Wales and the 



THE PHYSICAL. 47 



Highlands were the very home of blood and desola- 
tion. The Welsh mountains have witnessed trage- 
dies which still form the theme of many a thrilling 
story : and those Scottish glens through which our 
Sovereign wanders unattended by a soldier, once 
rung with the clansmen's wildest yells. Now, surely 
any natural degeneracy of the race would exhibit 
much the same features at the same time in all its 
tribes ; yet here we have two emerging from barbar- 
ism to civilization in spite of vast disadvantages ; 
and the third, from having once been the light of 
Europe, fast sinking into ruin, despite all that can 
be done to save it. 

So much for this groundless assertion. We now 
go farther, and boldly assert that the Irish, so 
far from being naturally degraded, possess qualities 
so admirable, that nothing but the foulest misman- 
agement could have hindered them from becoming 
one of the finest nations on the earth ; and we feel 
the more at liberty to speak on this point, as none 
but an Irishman can truly comprehend the odd con- 
struction of the Irish mind. To most men it is a 
puzzle — and to the British a national contrast. They 
see before them a strange medley of faults and vir- 
tues, of blunders and cleverness, of the comic and 
the tragic ; and they are bewildered amidst the 
nooks and corners of a mind so singular. Hence they 
are unable to discern between his natural qualities 
and his actual condition — between what he is and 
what he might be made ; and because they see him 



48 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



begging and stealing, and robbing and murdering, 
they put him down as all but hopeless. Alas ! they 
forget that in truth he has been " more sinned against 
than sinning," and have confounded the man with 
the malignant influences with which he is beset. 

If you look even to his body — where will you find 
a hardier % — able on dry potatoes to work down the 
English laborer on his flesh meat and ale ; and one 
cannot see his miserable diet without wondering 
how nature can manufacture such bone and sinew 
out of food so wretched ! Yes, and within that 
robust frame dwells a spirit whose buoyant vivacity 
years of sorrow have not destroyed — of which his 
fun and frolics are but the irregular escapes, and 
which one cannot but think was mercifully given 
him to support him under woes which must have 
crushed a more gloomy and contemplative spirit. 

If you look to his mind, he is at least as much 
celebrated for intelligence and wit, as for wildness 
and rags. Expressions to him the most common- 
place, you hear detailed as gems by the delighted 
tourist ; nor can we think their simile very much 
exaggerated who have compared his mind to the 
fragments of the diamond sparkling in the bril- 
liancy of unpolished lustre. And even as to those 
more substantial qualities for which he usually gets 
less credit, where has he ever been carefully trained 
that he has not rewarded the cultivation % Shall 
we appeal to the revolution wrought by Lord 
George Hill in one of the most barbarous of our 



THE PHYSICAL. 49 



mountain regions 1* or speak of the Connaught 
children who come to our industrial schools abso- 
lutely wild — needle and thimble being to them per- 
fect mystery — and who in a few months become 
new beings, and execute work so fine and delicate 
as to have won a high place at the Great Exhibi- 
tion. While as to more lofty pursuits of mind, 
though our country cannot boast many stars in the 
firmament of knowledge, she has at least shown 
what her sons could do were their advantages equal 
to those of others ; and has given to philosophy, a 
Boyle — to literature, a Goldsmith — to eloquence, a 
G rattan, and to poetry, a Moore — to the senate, the im- 
mortal Burke, and to the field, the Hero of Waterloo. 
Finally, if you look to our countrymen's heart, 
what fine traits of character you will often see 
bursting forth through all his degradation ! With- 
in his rude bosom lies the germ of many a noble 
quality which, if duly ripened, would make him a 
fine specimen of human nature. Hospitable to a 
proverb — generous to a fault — grateful, confiding, 
warm-hearted, and enjoying a world-wide renown for 
that reckless valor which seems scarce conscious of 
danger ! Of this the peninsular war furnished 
scores of romantic instances ; and the truth of 
O'Connell's doggerel none can dispute — 

" On the field of Waterloo, 
Duke Wellington would have looked blue. 
If Paddy hadn't been there too." 

* " Facts from Gweedore," by Lord George Hill. 
4 



50 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



We have noticed those heart-rending proofs of 
passionate tenderness which are daily furnished by 
our departing emigrants ; and if any one is disposed 
in cruel coldness to hint that such affectionate grief 
is too strong to last, we appeal to the letters and 
remittances they are continually sending home, not 
to their parents and friends only, but often to their 
neighbors, to enable them also to emigrate. It ap- 
pears from official papers that near £'2,000.000 ster- 
ling have in the last three years been remitted from 
North America by these poor people. And a return 
lately made by the Post-office shows, that one third 
of all the letters coming weekly from America are 
destined for Ireland. Follow those letters to their 
destination i Imagine the sensation produced in 
each humble abode when the anxiously-expected 
epistle from some absent child arrives ! The vil- 
lage neighbors flock in to hear it read ; and as some 
one more learned than the rest reads aloud, mark the 
tears, not only of the old couple, for that is nothing, 
but of many a kind-hearted neighbor ! It is full of 
inquiries after old acquaintances^ and tender allu- 
sions to by-gone scenes, which, despite their occa- 
sional tinge of the ludicrous, do vast credit to the 
best feelings of our nature. In a word, the charac- 
ter of the Irish is so richly dramatic, as to have 
given rise to a distinct class of writers, such as 
Edgeworth, Lover, and Carleton. The bleak winds 
which beat on their half-naked forms may make 
their bodies more callous, but they leave their feel- 



THE PHYSICAL. 51 



ings as tender as ever ; and those sensibilities which 
misfortune sometimes blunts in others, it often makes 
morbidly acute in them. 

Still we own they have many faults : we only as- 
sert, and engage to prove, that these are the off- 
spring of the unhappy circumstances in which they 
are placed ; while we contend that many of them 
confirm the position we are establishing, and are the 
faults of a fine mind which has been poisoned or 
neglected. How many of our countrymen owe their 
present poverty to the very excess of their hospital- 
ity ? How many, their turbulence, to that unsus- 
pecting confidence in their advisers, which marks a 
generous mind 1 How many of their worst quarrels, 
to that warmth of temper which usually accompanies 
warmth of heart ? And if. as is too justly alleged 
against our countrymen, there is as much mercury 
in his heels as there is wit in his head : if he is as 
fond of handling the shillelagh as the spade ; it is 
owing much to that impulsive ardor of character 
which is as useful when well trained, as it is mis- 
chievous when ill directed. Nor should we omit to 
mention, that, being a sort of living hyperbole, he 
has in very many respects earned a reputation much 
worse than he deserves. When he is drunk, he 
makes the whole town know it ; when provoked, he 
bawls and gesticulates as though he were frantic, 
and perhaps makes free with his neighbor's head ; 
yet we who know him well assert, that in all this 
" pother" there is not so much real, and far less en- 



52 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



during wrath, than is often betrayed in another man's 
scowl. 

Here, then, we find the elements of a noble race 
— a mind and heart of a structure as fine as it is 
singular, resembling a complicated but delicate mu- 
sical instrument which is easily destined by a 
clumsy hand, but gives forth the finest tones when 
swept by a skilful performer. We have here a char- 
acter peculiarly capable of great good or great evil 
— of the loftiest elevation or the lowest degradation 
— which, like their own rich soil, can produce nothing 
in common measure, but exhibits equal rankness in 
the weeds that infest it, and richness in the flowers 
that adorn it — a character, in short, which can be 
turned to the best or the worst account, and has 
been justly compared to fire, which when uncon- 
trolled is the most destructive of elements, but skil- 
fully managed, is the most useful, serving alike to 
propel the engine and kindle the incense of the 
altar ! 

And thus we demonstrate that Ireland's miseries 
can no more be traced to the race than to the coun- 
try ; that, on the contrary, the natural superiority 
of both proves that not only must the cause be 
sought in some other quarter, but that it must truly 
be one of dreadful malignity to have desolated so 
fair a land, and degraded so fine a people. 



THE POLITICAL. 53 



CHAPTER II. 

THE POLITICAL. 

We now approach a subject which contains per- 
haps the most popular solution of Ireland's wretch- 
edness—the very eureka of multitudes. 

For many years we have had two sets of rulers, 
the one in St. Stephen's, and the other in Corn Ex- 
change ; and we have had each charging the other 
with our country's woes, in terms generally more 
forcible than courteous. The grand text of the one 
has been — " the curse of British misrule :" and a 
favorite theme with the other — " the pest of Irish 
agitation." And if what the one party rings in our 
ears be true, the wrongs of Hungary are but trifles 
to ours ; while if we are to listen to the other, such 
swarms of demagogues must needs destroy the finest 
land. Let us judge for a moment between parties 
so fierce, and statements so conflicting. 

The Agitator. — It is true, Ireland has for ages 
been the hotbed of agitation. Inhabited since the 
days of Elizabeth by two distinct races, having little 
in common but the soil they tilled, regarding each 
other as aliens in blood and religion, and their feel- 
ings embittered by their relation as conquerors and 
conquered — the result has been, that party strife 
which has so long afflicted Ireland, and those swarms 



54 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

of agitators that have so long infested it. Hence it 
has been almost as much the scene of political con- 
flict, as though this were the necessary condition of 
its being — a something which floated in the atmos- 
phere and grew on the soil. 

But what if it is those who denounce this agita- 
tion who are themselves in part to blame for its ex- 
istence 1 Some real and more imaginary grievances 
are the agitator's stock in trade ; and Britain has in 
times past furnished so much of the former, as has 
made him but too successful in palming off the latter. 
Nay, even her mode of redressing grievances has 
sometimes served his trade almost as much as her 
obstinate continuance of them. Wise and timely 
concession is death to the agitator ; but her conces- 
sions have often been so tardy, and made with so bad 
a grace, as rather to have increased his power. She 
has too often led the Irish to think that she has 
granted them more from motives of fear than from a 
sense of justice. And when the agitator thus dis- 
covered that little could be got without clamoring — 
when he saw, or thought he saw, that turbulence 
fared better than loyalty, that the quiet petitioner 
was shoved aside, while the noisy blusterer obtained 
a ready hearing — no wonder that he pushed his trade 
and found it to flourish. 

We must add our conviction that the evils of agi- 
tation are much overrated. It is error, not truth, 
which suffers most by it in the end. Even the 
worst form of it can only thrive on popular ignorance ; 



THE POLITICAL. 55 



yet it tends of necessity to dispel the ignorance on 
which it thrives, and thus it sooner or later perishes 
by its own hand. We appeal to the career of the 
great Irish demagogue. Not only did he do much 
to emancipate the Irish mind, and, by inspiring the 
people with a love of civil liberty, awaken of neces- 
sity some longing for its twin sister, religious free- 
dom ; but it was his own teaching which mainly 
enabled them, at length, to see through his schemes, 
provoked that revolt which cost him his life, destroy- 
ed Irish agitation as a trade, and sent him down to 
the grave so little regretted, that you will now sel- 
dom hear pronounced, even by those who once wor- 
shipped him, the name of that prince of agitators, 
who, from the rock of Darrynane, once governed the 
empire. Irish agitation has thus committed suicide. 
0' Conn ell is no more : and where is now his vast 
train of followers ? Young Ireland, that killed him, 
is also gone, having perished ignobly in a cabbage 
garden. Conciliation Hall is closed ; Tara's Hill is 
now as silent as Tara's Halls. Even the priests, 
once omnipotent, already know that their new " De- 
fence" agitation is doomed to be a failure. Our 
quick-sighted countrymen have learned wisdom. 
They have discovered their " Liberators" to be 
greater tyrants than those from whom they proposed 
to free them ; so they are bent on emigration, not on 
agitation ; their thoughts are in the land of the 
West. 

Finally, agitation is sometimes a positive duty. 



56 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



Constitutional agitation is the Briton's privilege, 
and, where grievances exist, the country's blessing 
and if, in designing hands, it has been the parent of 
rebellion, it has, in upright hands, been the parent 
of progress. To it we are indebted for every politi- 
cal boon we have ever gained, from the triumph of 
Runnymede to our latest reforms. Our glorious 
Constitution itself is its child. And if Irish agita- 
tion is an evil, it has sometimes, we fear, been a 
necessary one. If at this moment, for instance, we 
see agitation rise in Ulster — a province as proverbial 
for peace as is the rest of Ireland for turbulence, — 
if we see amongst its foremost leaders, not the des- 
perate adventurer who has been schooled in the 
club-room, but the quiet farmer who follows his 
team — if we see this man doing violence to all his 
tastes and habits, passing at once from the plough 
to the platform, and there reciting his tale of suffer- 
ings with an artlessness that proves its truth, and a 
feeling which proclaims their intenseness — above all, 
if we see him countenanced by those gospel ministers 
to whose labors it is owing that Ulster is the Goshen 
of Ireland, and amongst whose flocks those who 
denounce them as " reverend agitators" can alone 
sleep safely on their pillow — then must we own that 
there is surely some good cause for a phenomenon 
so singular ; and we must charge the attendant evils 
of such agitation, not on those who seek redress, but 
on those who refuse it. If their story is false, it is 
easy to convict them of falsehood ; but if true, it is 



THE POLITICAL. 57 



the foulest wrong to call them incendiaries — the 
crudest mockery to bid them be still — the vilest 
hypocrisy to denounce their strong language without 
breathing a whisper against the oppression which 
provokes it — and the basest insult to the gospel to 
ask its ministers to make it the despot's tool by 
preaching silent submission while the fruits of their 
pastoral toils are being blasted, the only fair prov- 
ince in Ireland is being desolated, and those who 
are the very salt of our country are being driven to 
other climes. 

Having said this much on the general subject of 
agitation, we still most freely admit that it must 
have greatly injured the country ; but to say that it 
has ruined it, is absurd. Agitation may produce 
national discontent, but where has it ever caused na- 
tional dissolution ? Besides it is those western re- 
gions which have been the least agitated that are the 
moet distressed, and those midland districts which 
have suffered least, that have been the chief scenes 
of excitement ; while it is well known, that years 
ago, when political agitation was at its height, the 
country was comparatively prosperous, and it is when 
its fires are almost extinguished that we have reached 
the lowest depths of misery. 

Besides, agitation itself is not a primary evil, but 
owes its existence to other evils. It either springs 
from real grievances — and then not the agitator but 
the legislature is chargeable with its evils — or from 
imaginary grievances, and then they must be charged 



58 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



on the guilt of the demagogue or the ignorance of 
his dupes — causes which are moral, not political. 
With wise and just rulers there can be few griev- 
ances, and therefore little righteous agitation : with 
an enlightened and virtuous people there can be few 
dupes or deceivers, and hence little unrighteous agi- 
tation. Therefore, granting it. as we do most freely, 
to be one cause of our miseries, it is but a deriva- 
tive one, and must itself be traced to some higher 
cause. 

The Legislature. — Is our country's blood, then, 
on the hands of our rulers 1 Surely there must be 
good ground for the everlasting cry of " Sassenach 
oppression," which even our village children have 
learned to repeat. It can scarce be possible that 
the favorite theme of the Irish agitator, and the 
most fruitful source of Irish discontent, should prove, 
when examined, " like the baseless fabric of a vision." 
Let us see. The " curse" alleged must be found 
either in the constitution or the mode in which it is 
administered. 

Is it the constitution you object to 1 Then would 
you have republicanism ? So have France and Mex- 
ico ; and there you have edifying specimens of lib- 
erty ! Or absolute monarchy ? So have Russia and 
Austria ; and Africa contains not baser slavery than 
is imposed on those countries by the " beardless 
Nero," and the "northern bear." Or an ecclesiasti- 
cal government? So has Rome ; and if you wish a 



THE POLITICAL. 59 



sample of a government at once diabolical and das- 
tardly, committing the vilest crimes in the name of 
Jesus, read Nicolini's late History of the Pontificate 
of Pio Nono. Or a mixed government, combining, 
as far as possible, the benefits of the others without 
their evils 1 Why, this is what you are blessed with, 
if you only knew your blessings. Defects it has, 
like everything human ; but these deserve not to be 
named in comparison to its perfections. It is the 
glory of England, the en\y of Europe, the admira- 
tion of the world : and had Britain done no more for 
Ireland than to displace her barbarous Brechon laws 
with such a glorious code, that was a boon which 
deserved her eternal gratitude ! 

Is it, then, that Ireland is defrauded of the bless- 
ings of this constitution, and is the victim of unjust 
laws ? Doubtless, in the best statute book, there is 
room for improvement, and, as we have hinted, we 
could suggest amendments in our own. But what 
true British subject can look this instant over Eu- 
rope, and not feel thankful for his own immunities ? 
While our countrymen have been roused to madness 
by the demagogue's artful tale of British wrongs, 
how carefully has he withheld the far longer list of 
British benefits? Grant that, in former days, Eng- 
land did not thoroughly act out the principles of lib- 
erty, civil and religious ; — this was owing to the dark- 
ness from which the world was then but emerging ; 
and the blame rests not with her, but the authors of 
this darkness. Grant that she imposed disabilities 



60 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

on the Roman Catholics ; — if such acts of iniquity 
as the gunpowder plot convinced her that they could 
not be trusted with power, who but themselves were 
to blame for the loss of it ? Or, granting that there 
once was ground for the charge of British misrule, 
on what do you rest your accusation now % Are we 
insufficiently represented in Parliament ? We have 
105 members, while Scotland has only 53. Is the 
suffrage too limited ? For a long time, it embraced 
even 40s. freeholders, and, as is now universally ad- 
mitted, this proved not a blessing but a curse, and 
led to that subdivision of land which has so greatly 
enhanced our calamities. 

Is it, then, the legislative union which has wrought 
our country's ruin ? Such has been the language of 
a thousand meetings, and the hottest bolts of " pa- 
triot" indignation have been launched against the 
very name of " that traitor, Castlereagh ;" while 
repeal has been proclaimed the measure which would 
usher in the millennium of Ireland. Well, union is 
usually strength, not weakness. Scotland has felt 
the full force of the proverb since her parliament 
was transferred from Holy rood to Westminster : 
and how can the same measure prove Scotland's 
prosperity and Ireland's destruction ? Besides, other 
stubborn facts interfere most rudely with our patri- 
ots' assertions ; for it appears from the records of 
the Irish House of Commons, that trade had so 
grievously declined before the union, that College 
Green was beset with complaints on the subject ; 



THE POLITICAL. 61 



t 



while, according to returns from time to time ordered 
by the Imperial Parliament, our imports and exports 
have, since the union, greatly increased. Now if, as 
we are told, the southern provinces have declined 
since the union, of course this increase must have 
been chiefly confined to Ulster ; and then comes the 
problem, how the union can be such a blessing to one 
province, and such a curse to the rest, especially 
when, instead of being the most favored by govern- 
ment, Ulster has been notoriously the most neglected 
of the four ? In truth, a parliament in which so few 
were found proof against the "bribes" of Castlereagh, 
was, at best, but a doubtful blessing ; nor, were all 
the ancient glories of College Green to be restored, 
uld we expect an assembly of much purer patriots, 
we are to judge by the specimens that often grace 
our hustings, and offer our country their senatorial 
services. 

Again, we are told of the heartless treatment which 
Ireland receives at the hands of Britain. Nay, so 
far have base men reckoned on our people's ignorance, 
that they have assured them no country groans be- 
neath such a load of taxation ! Why, the taxes of 
Great Britain are, at least, thrice as numerous, com- 
prising a long list, unknown in Ireland, of taxes on 
carriages, gigs, horses, dogs, servants, coachmen, her- 
aldry, income, plate, &c. ; and our only heavy imposts 
are our poor-rates, county-cess, and tithe-rent charge, 
all of which are expended among ourselves, and the 
severity of two of which is owing to our own poverty 



62 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



and crime. And as to oppressive laws, we ask on 
what page of our statute book are they contained ? 
Or, where, alas ! can you find amoDgst us those fea- 
tures of down-trodden greatness which oppression 
never fails to bring out, and which have made the 
Pole and Hungarian the adntiration of the world? 
Is it such wretches as throng our jails, who consti- 
tute the victims of British oppression ? — or such 
deeds as larceny and felony that compose our claims 
to the sympathy of nations ? Misrule ! such was 
the impression the attempted rebellion of 1848 made 
even on its own leaders, that they were heard to 
confess that their countrymen " did not deserve to 
be free." 

The truth is, Ireland has been the object of the 
most pains-taking legislation ; and whatever have 
been the sins of our rulers, it would be downright 
wrong to deny this. More time is each session 
spent on Irish affairs, than on all our colonial affairs 
together ; and more of the public treasure has been 
lavished on Ireland than any other portion of the 
empire. Since 1800, 33 Committees of Parliament, 
and 21 Government Commissions have been appoint- 
ed to inquire into the causes of our miseries, and the 
best means of their removal ; and during the same 
period we have received £26,000,000 sterling in mere 
grants and advances.* £1,000,000 has been given 
to construct harbors for our commerce ; £8,500,000 
to encourage our manufactures ; £8,000,000 to save 

* Thorn's Statistics, passhii. 



THE POLITICAL. 63 



our people from the grave of famine ; while our 
canals, railways, agriculture, and fisheries have all 
been nursed at the public expense. Nay, even our 
charitable institutions are largely supported by par- 
liamentary grants.* Yet, while not a tithe of this 
kindness has been shown either to Ulster or Scot- 
land, the southern demagogue has for years harped 
upon British neglect. 

Where, then, can you find such political griev- 
ances as can at all account for our miseries ; or how 
explain that our least favored province is the most 
prosperous, and its people the most loyal, though at 
least as able to detect, and ready to resist oppression 
as any of their countrymen ? Does it not demon- 
strate how little our disease is connected with poli- 
tics at all, that we have for years been growing 
worse, while our legislation has confessedly been 
growing better ; until now, the country is at the 
point of dissolution, when according to our political 
empirics she should at least have been convalescent ? 
Alas ! if legislation could have blessed us, we should 
now have been the happiest of nations, for on no 
country's behalf have more statutes been framed — 
and our people are at length beginning to perceive 
this. They have seen how their ' : patriots" have all 
been strangely hushed in the hour of our deepest 
distress, when, if British misrule is its cause, their 
voice should have been louder than ever. And they 
are beginning to see that other motives may influence 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 251. 



64 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

an agitator besides those of pure-minded patriotism ; 
that, after all, parliament can do little for a country 
if it will do nothing for itself; and that in order to 
prosperity, Ireland needs something far different 
from what agitation can extort, or legislation con- 
cede. Hence they are beginning to suspect that 
the grand cause of their evils is something in them- 
selves rather than in the laws — something which 
follows the Irishman beyond his native shores, and 
makes him the same wretched being in every town 
in Britain ; beyond the United Kingdom, and makes 
him the same byeword by the lakes of Canada, and 
on the plains of Australia ; aye, beyond the u curse 
of British misrule" altogether, and makes the south- 
ern the chief inmate of American jails, while many 
a northern has reached the first rank amongst her 
citizens ! 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SOCIAL. 



Thus, the mystery of Ireland's woes seems but to 
deepen' as we proceed. We have sought its solution 
in her physical state, but it is not there. We have 
examined her political state, neither is it there. Per- 
haps we shall be more successful in our present de- 
partment of inquiry. 

We cannot give the reader a better key to Ire- 



THE SOCIAL. 65 

laud's social state, than to say that the clouds of 
feudalism still linger on her hills. Why they so 
linger after having gone up so generally oif the face 
of Britain, shall hereafter be considered ; it is enough 
now to state the fact. You not only see it in the 
extreme paucity of a middle class, that index of a 
country's progress : but you can still trace the old 
division into barons and serfs only too distinctly in 
the modern one of gentry and peasantry ; and you 
have, of course in a milder form, the same haughty 
assumption in the one class, and the same servile 
submission in the other. This remark will prepare 
the reader for the following brief glance at Ireland's 
social state, under the simple classification of habits 
and 'pursuits. 

Habits. — There is little which more distinguishes 
the upper classes of Ireland from those of Britain 
than extravagant habits, combined with foolish no- 
tions of rank and style. Inquire into the history of 
those decayed families which now fill the land, and 
you will find, that with many honorable exceptions, 
doubtless, they have for generations lived in a man- 
ner unsuiteel to their station, and incompatible with 
their means. Even so late as 60 years ago, high 
life in Ireland was little else than a round of fash- 
ionable dissipation ; and the wildest escapades to be 
found in the works of Barrington and Lever, were, 
if not literally, at least in substance perpetrated. A 
host considered it discreditable if any of his guests 



66 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



were allowed to leave his table without needing 
help ; and so deliberately did the guests themselves 
prepare for their fate, that they often wound up 
their watches before sitting down to dinner ! As 
for fighting, Sir Lucius 0' Trigger was the common- 
est character. No gentleman travelled without 
duelling pistols. His " marking irons," as they 
were called, were as indispensable an article as his 
razors ; and doubtless sufficient ground was given 
for the squib which represented the morning orders 
at an hotel sometimes to be, " Pistols for two, and 
breakfast for one /" What, then, shall we say of 
other vices ? It was the frequent boast of not a few 
of these gentlemen, how many females they had de- 
stroyed ; and such moral nuisances were many of 
them, that absenteeism itself became a blessing, and 
the most important service they ever rendered their 
country was to die. 

Alas ! these habits have not all died with them. 
The improved tone of society at large forbids, of 
course, the same reckless wildness ; but so far at 
least, as extravagant style is concerned, too many of 
our present gentry walk in the ways of their fathers. 
With many highly honorable exceptions, the same 
passion for display which has already beggared them, 
continues, though the means of indulging it has fail- 
ed. Numbers are at this moment living at the ex- 
pense of others, when no longer able to live at their 
own. And to judge by their conduct, one would 
think that they considered it the deepest dishonor 



r~*s 



THE SOCIAL. 67 



for a gentleman to stoop to any kind of industry ; 
more disgraceful to be a shopkeeper, than to be hope- 
lessly indebted to one ; and scarce so humiliating to 
borrow one's bread, as to earn it in some honest call- 
ing ; while nothing is to them more incomprehensible 
than that English members of parliament should 
sometimes be proprietors of a warehouse ! 

Habits travel downwards ; and those of the upper 
ranks have been aped by our scanty middle class. 
Men often retire from business and set up as " gentle- 
men," with less means than Englishmen generally 
commence on ; and you will meet dozens in every 
southern town, driving about in total idleness, on " for- 
tunes" which English farmers would scarce deem a 
competency. The same passion for style marks their 
very nomenclature ; — a small trader is a merchant, 
and a shop a store ; a plain cottage is a villa, and a 
common street a mall. Nor is it less observable 
in their domestic arrangements. Convenience usually 
yields to show ; — if the drawing-room is well kept, it 
is not so much matter about the kitchen ; and the 
back premises often sadly contrast with the lawn. 
The young gentlemen's ambition is to have a dog or 
a horse. The young ladies sit in the drawing-room 
and play the piano ; and if one drop of blood of any 
ancient family can be traced in their veins, then, no 
matter how penniless they may be, the thriving " up- 
start" who aspires to their hand often meets a re- 
sponse more prompt than agreeable. 

What, then, shall we say of our peasantry 1 You 



68 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



need only enter one of those innumerable cabins 
which disfigure the face of our country, to get a 
glimpse of their condition. You enter and find some- 
times two, but oftener one apartment ; and there the 
pig and the family dwell harmoniously together. 
You look around and find a group of half-naked 
urchins, whose legs are encrusted with mire. You 
ask for the poor man's wardrobe — it is all on his 
back ; and a sad specimen it usually is of " looped 
and windowed raggedness." You cannot help won- 
dering how, when once out of his clothes, he can ever 
get into them again, or perhaps your wonder rather 
is how this can be a difficulty, there being so many 
entrances. Finally, you ask his history, and find 
that, from whatever cause, his entire class has for 
ages stood still on the borders of civilization ; and 
that whole districts continue in a state of primitive 
barbarism, not much exceeded by the American In- 
dians. You traverse, for instance, the entire west 
coast, from Donegal to Cork, an extent of 300 miles, 
and stretching the whole length of Ireland ; and can 
scarce discover one sign of that upward tendency 
which distinguishes the man from the beast ; but 
the same unchanging style of hut and habits con- 
tinues through generations, as though their only 
guide really were the instinct of the lower creation. 

Pursuits. — We have seen the sickly state of our 
husbandry, commerce, and manufacture, despite the 
rarest facilities — that perhaps in no country has na- 



THE SOCTAL. 69 



ture done more, and art done less. Alas ! every ef- 
fect has its adequate cause. Let any one brought 
up in an English town, accustomed to its matchless 
habit of business, and the clock-work regularity of 
its establishments, pay a visit to any of our southern 
towns, and in what a different atmosphere he instantly 
finds himself ! How forcibly he is struck with the 
air of idleness that pervades its streets ; he is not 
less struck with the unbusiness-like appearance, and 
often positive slovenliness of its shops and offices. 
And. save where some Scotch house has chased it 
away, he finds much the same style of business, with 
all its attributes — its high prices, and second prices, 
and indifferent assortments — which prevailed in those 
v - good old times," when the affairs of life jogged 
quietly on ; when the goddess of pleasure shared the 
throne with the god of riches ; and when the evening 
was the best part of the day. Nor let him be sur- 
prised to see the proprietor taking his drive during 
business hours, or hear of his going a-sporting once 
a-week or so. Least of all, let him wonder when he 
examines his ledgers, to find them fall short of his 
English notions of accuracy. And to all this let 
him add such a moral tone in society, that it is 
nothing rare for a clerk to abscond, or an employer 
more than once to fail, or even plain cheating itself 
to occur — and then let him say if our commercial 
decline is any great mystery. 

Should any one pronounce this picture overdrawn, 
we assert that it is rather the reverse. Is it not no- 



70 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



torious, that all over the south and west — (for we 
speak not of Ulster ; its social state, we shall pres- 
ently bee, '> as different from the rest of Ireland as 
its temporal) — our best houses, in most departments 
of trade, are Scotch and English ; that, even now, 
they are flourishing when our own countrymen in the 
same business are melting away ; and that it is to 
them we are mainly indebted for the little commer- 
cial character we possess? It is they who have 
compelled our own people to adopt their improved 
mode of business, and created a trade where none 
previously Existed. To them we are largely in- 
debted for a fish and pork trade ; and there was not 
in the entire pasture county of Kerry a single but- 
ter market, till one was, some years ago, established 
by a Scotchman ! Even our Irish employers them- 
selves find it often necessary to employ Scotch or 
English servants. Are not our railways generally 
constructed, our fisheries conducted, our banks offi- 
cered, nay, even our posts of gardener and land- 
steward, filled by strangers ? Was there ever such 
folly as to blame all this on England, as some are 
so fond of doing? The tides of business obey the 
same laws with those of the ocean ; and if we our- 
selves were what we ought to be. the whole power 
of England could not produce this state of things. 
Nothing, in fact, can make inferior articles long keep 
the market against superior ones. Natural laws are 
too strong for artificial restrictions ; and if there is 
any conspiracy against us, it is not an English, but 



THE SOCIAL. 71 

a world-wide conspiracy. The Dutchman undersells 
us in the Loudon markets : the American undersells 
us in our own. Our hottest repealers themselves 
traverse England for goods which they might often 
get at home; and too well they know why — that, 
however humbling the truth, poor Ireland has drop- 
ped far behind in the world's commercial march. 

But the chief interest in Ireland, is the agrtctd- 
til rat ' ; yet, though no people are more dependent 
on the farm, with none is the style of farming worse. 
No man seems to trust more to the mere vis natures 
than our peasant farmer. Subsoil ploughing he 
scarce ever heard of, and draining was rare until the 
late drainage bill was passed — he usually leaves the 
water to go as it came. His ploughing is bad, his 
fencing worse, and his spade, called a toy, seems as 
if made on purpose to disturb the ground as little as 
possible. His crop is usually left to struggle on as 
best it can against an army of weeds ; and as if it 
were sacrilege so far to interfere with Nature's wild- 
est productions as to cut them down, you will see 
thistles standing on the harvest ridge, the crops hav- 
ing been carefully cut away around them, and in 
windy Autumn's days, you will meet their winged 
seeds careering along the fields. As you go west- 
ward, tilings grow worse. In Mayo, you will see 
the limestone in the river beds, and the turf on their 
banks to burn it withal ; yet it lies undisturbed, as 
though its use were unknown ; and even so late as 
1847, when Mr. Brannigan introduced turnips to 



72 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



Ballinglen, so new were the}* to the peasantry, that 
they went by the name of " Brannigan's turnips." 

You inquire the cause of such agricultural delin- 
quency, and find that, as usual in Ireland, all men 
blame all men but themselves. The tenant declares 
that the rent is too high, and the landlord replies by 
threatening to raise it : the one protests that his 
landlord is a tyrant, and the other that his tenantry 
arc sluggards : and each adduces so much in proof 
of his charge, that one is half inclined to believe 
them both. At all events, the truth seems to lie be- 
tween them. We cannot believe the tenant to be 
the innocent martyr he represents himself, or that 
high rents are the sole cause of his wretchedness, 
else how is it that those tenants whose land is Is. an 
acre, are usually as poor as those who pay 20s. % 
Indeed, it is quite a common remark, that this class 
never thrive until their rent is raised : and should 
we charge on the landlords all the poverty, even of 
those who pay the highest rents, their own broken 
fences and weed-grown fields would testify against 
us. 

Still, we believe that the tenant's wretchedness is 
mainly chargeable on the landlord, or. rather, the 
wretched system of landlordism in Ireland, and that. 
of all the secondary and derivative causes of our 
miseries, this is the chief. The gentry being the 
monopolists of the soil, have always been able to let 
it to the peasantry on whatever terms they pleased ; 
and the latter, having no other means of livelihood, 



THE SOCIAL. 73 



have had no alternative but to accept their terms or 
starve. Such entire control presented temptations 
too strong for slender virtue. Such irresponsible 
power naturally led to tyranny ; such complete mo- 
nopoly to exorbitant rents ; such easily acquired 
wealth, to extravagant living ; and all together, to 
many of those evils in which both landlord and ten- 
ant arc now hopelessly involved. Forgetting that 
property has its duties as well as its rights, many 
landlords lived as though they were born but to en- 
joy, fruges wnsumere nati, and, instead of seeking 
the elevation of their tenants, treated them as mere 
ministers of their pleasures, and supporters of their 
extravagance. 

This conduct sowed the seeds of manifold evils ; 
the events of the last thirty years have fearfully ac- 
celerated their growth ; at length the terrible harvest 
has come, and landlordism now reaps as it sowed. 
Fifty years ago, the extravagance of our gentry was 
at its height, and their estates were becoming rapid- 
ly embarrassed. At the same period, the wars of 
Napoleon had raised farm produce to an artificial 
price. The opportunity was too tempting, and the 
landlord generally raised the rent in proportion. 
While the wars lasted, *■ times were good ;" the farm- 
er could pay, and the landlord lived accordingly: 
but ever since the peace of 1815, farm produce has 
been sinking in value, till now it is not one half its 
old war price : yet land has still continued at the 
old war rent, and in many cases risen far above it ; — 



74 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



that is, the farmer has as much, or more, rent to pay 
with but one half the means of paying it ; and the 
result has, of course, been his rapid decline. In 
vain were the landlords entreated, for their own 
sakes, to lower the rents in time ; in vain were they 
assured that they were '" killing the goose which laid 
the golden egg:" in vain were they reminded that 
they were driving to America the very flower of 
their tenantry, and filling their places with a de- 
graded class, many of whom would promise any rent 
and pay none. It was utterly vain. They had not 
the sense to foresee the future consequences, nor the 
firmness to withstand the present temptation, and so, 
allured by " a high bid," they drove off their substan- 
tial farmers to make way for a pauper tenantry ; and 
now the day of reckoning has arrived. 

These evils have been aggravated by various cir- 
cumstances. One has been our system of ^middle- 
men" — that ' : squireen" class, who, holding under the 
head landlord, sublet their property at rack-rents, 
and, instead of earning their bread with the sweat 
of their own brow, lived in idleness on the sweat of 
a down-trodden tenantry. Another, has been the 
oppressive exactions of unprincipled agents, with 
their grim train of bailiffs and drivers. Even so 
late as 1845, the " Tines Commissioner" brought 
to light a system of iniquity, on the part of both 
middlemen and agents, which was scarcely credible, 
it has often been remarked, that whoever is poor, 
agents generally get rich ; and could the " office" 



THE SOCIAL. 75 

walls speak, the mystery would perhaps disappear ; 
while, to say nothing of such oblations as eggs and 
butter, geese and turkeys, many arc the more costly 
offerings with which a trembling tenantry are obliged 
to propitiate a middleman's favor. 

But the crowning hardship is the tenant's liability 
to have the fruits of his improvements grasped by 
his landlord. If a peasant rents a common for 5s. 
an acre. and. by his own sole exertion, makes it in a 
few years worth 20.v . the landlord not unfrequently 
raises the rent to 20s.. and gives him his option to 
pay it or "quit." The present Tenant-Eight agita- 
tion in Ulster owes its existence to these unrighteous 
exactions. The Ulster farmers are by far the most 
improving in Ireland. They found Ulster a desert : 
they have made it a garden. : - Tenant-Eight" simply 
means the tenant's right to the benefit of his oivn 
improvements. Besides its obvious justice, it was 
secured to them at the time of the " Plantation," 
and has ever since been the prevailing usage in 
Ulster. But the farmers have of late got some 
cause to think that the sooner it is made hnv the 
better ; and nothing but the most short-sighted policy 
would resist a claim so righteous. That landlord 
must be blind who does not see that, if he would 
have his estates improved, it is by rewarding, not 
punishing the tenant for his industry. No man in 
his senses will make improvements in the prospect 
of being robbed of them, or taxed for them ; and if 
this is the reward the Ulster landlords will confer 



76 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

upon tenantry who have made their position such an 
enviable contrast to that of Ireland's other landlords, 
let them rest assured that the same ruin awaits them 
which has now fallen upon these their brethren. In 
truth, it is manifest thai no concession of mere 
tenant-right can now save them. A series of social 
changes has so altered our entire condition, that the 
relations of landlord and tenant must be completely 
readjusted to meet these altered circumstances. To 
resist such a measure seems to us like contending 
against fate, and, we fear, the longer it is deferred 
it will be the more sweeping when it comes. 

Such, then, is a brief sketch of Ireland's social 
state. Well, the complicated cause of our wretched- 
ness begins at length to unfold itself; for what else 
but social decay could flow from such social derange- 
ment ? It surely requires no great sagacity to per- 
ceive that such habits must lead to want, and want 
to general disorganization, or that that country must 
decline, in which all classes, from the landlord to 
the peasant, so generally neglect the duties of their 
station ? A country which wears such an air of 
idleness, that the Englishman, on first landing from 
Iiis own busy home, almost fancies he has arrived on 
some holiday ; whose style of business and farming 
is so bad, that he protests it would entail certain 
bankruptcy in Britain, and where the advent of a 
Scotchman is deemed a blessing to a neighborhood, 
and he makes a fortune on the spot where his prede- 
cessor starved. Nor can we have better proof of 



THE MORAL. J J 



our position than the social superiority of Ulster. 
We have already seeu its comparative prosperity ■ 
well, the least observant traveller who visits this 
province is struck with the diligence of the husband- 
man, the enterprise of the merchant, and the peace- 
ful, plodding industry of all. There, all is frugality 
and simplicity — mothers, even of the first rank, 
attend closely to their households, instead of driv- 
ing about in their carriages. There, idleness and 
style, instead of being deemed respectable, are 
despised ; there, men take rank, not so much from 
what their fathers were, as from what they them- 
selves are ; and instead of the high-born profligate 
being respected, and the architect of his own fortune 
despised, there is practised the noble sentiment of the 
Roman, who, when taunted by a profligate patrician 
with his obscure birth, replied,-" You owe all your 
greatness to others, I owe mine to myself." 

But it is evident that Ireland's social state must 
itself be derivative ; and, while one cause of our evils, 
must flow from higher causes. What can these be 1 
is our next subject of inquiry. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE MORAL. 



Let us here premise, that knowledge and virtue, 
aud ignorance and vice, are the chief causes of social 



78 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

elevation and degradation respectively. Enough of 
the former must raise any nation to the highest pin- 
nacle of greatness ; while enough of the latter must 
sink it to the lowest depths. What makes the chief 
difference between the savage and the sage but 
knowledge, or between the angel and the demon but 
virtue ? The nation which has most of both must 
necessarily leave others behind. Scarce anything 
could keep down a people all light and virtue, and 
nothing could elevate a people all ignorance and vice. 
And this is so obvious, that let a wilderness be filled 
with the world's best benefactors, and it would soon 
become a paradise ; then let these be succeeded by 
the worst malefactors, and it would quickly become 
a wilderness more terrible than at first ; or let it be 
filled with succeeding generations, varying in their 
degrees of light and virtue, and all other things 
being equal, its condition would vary in exact pro- 
portion. How seldom does virtue find its way, even 
by mistake into a jail ! And so rarely is knowledge 
itself found there, that for the four years ending 
1850, the average annual proportion of prisoners in 
Ireland who could read and write, was not 18 per 
cent.* Let us see how far Ireland enjoys these 
blessings : — 

Knowledge. — According to the census of 1841, 

* Thorn (1852) p. 201. It is this intimate connection of 
ignorance and vice which has induced us to class both un- 
der the one head of moral causes. Their powerful mutual 
influence will become more apparent as we proceed. 



THE MORAL. 79 



near 53 per cent, of the population of Ireland could 
neitJier read nor write ; while only 26 per cent, 
could both read and write ! Thus our educational 
statistics, at the very first glance, bring out the 
astounding fact, that 1 1 years ago three fourths of 
the people were devoid of the simplest rudiments of 
knowledge. You ask how can this be accounted for. 
Till the National Board was established, whole dis- 
tricts depended for their education on the Irish 
Hedge School — that matchless nursery of knowl- 
edge, whose site was a bog, whose forms were often 
the floor, whose slates and copy-books were some- 
times the chalked walls and door, and whose school- 
books such select works as the " Irish Rapparees," 
and " Freny, the Robber ;" while all was presided 
over by a pedagogue, compared to whom, Gold- 
smith's schoolmaster himself was a trifle.* What, 
then, was our learning when such was its seat % Even 
yet the National Board has a stupendous task be- 
fore it. There are still whole districts into which 
scarce a book or a newspaper penetrates, and where 
you will find professional scribes who are employed 
by the people to write their letters for them to 
America. 

We have already noticed the barbarism of our 
western coast. The numerous islands in particular, 
which so beautifully stud the bosom of the Atlantic, 
and seem designed, like smaller gems, to garnish the 
" emerald, set in the ring of the sea," are sunk in 

* Report, Commissioners, Public Instruction, 1834. 



80 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

such primitive ignorance, that when, some years 
ago, a boat from Tory island was driven by a 
storm on the mainland, the crew pulled leaves and 
branches off the trees to show as curiosities on their 
return !* 

Their moral and religious ignorance is still more 
deplorable. It is quite notorious that thousands in 
Ireland never saw a Bible ; never heard of the 
Trinity ; know nothing of the Saviour but the 
name ; and are so ignorant of the nature of vice 
and crime, as to be restrained from it chiefly through 
fear of the prison. To the question. " Who made 
you?" how often have our missionaries received the 
answer, " It was my mother, sir !" To the question, 
" Are you a sinner ?" you will often get the reply, 
" No, indeed, sir !" We ourselves have often asked, 
" How many persons are there in the Godhead ?" and 
have been answered, " I do not know, sir ;" and in 
reply to the question, " Who is the Holy Ghost ?" 
have been told by several that they never heard of 
a Holy Ghost ! And should you express surprise 
at any of these answers, you are often silenced by 
the touching reply, " God help me, I never got the 
learning." God help them, indeed ! and these are 
not savage heathens in the jungle, but our own 
Christian fellow-countrymen — of whom, even while 
we write, some are passing before the judgment 
throne ! 

Hence their amazing superstition. You will see 
* Noel's Tour. 



THE MORAL. 



charms called " gospels," and " scapulars'' tied round 
their necks, and fixed in their cabin roofs to keep 
away devils and fairies ! If their cow takes ill, it is 
" fairy shot ;" if their churn will not yield the but- 
ter, it is Ci blinked ;" indeed, they seem as if they 
thought evil spirits had a peculiar fancy for a dairy, 
and had little else to clo than play pranks with the 
milk and butter. Their superstitious minds have 
covered the land with holy wells, trees, lakes, and 
mountains, each having its patron saint — rivalling 
the ancient Greeks in their poetic creations of naiads, 
nereids, fauns, and hamadryads. You will some- 
times see them, as they pass a holy well, take off 
their hats and begin to mutter as if addressing some 
spirit who resided in its waters. Most of these 
wells are endowed with miraculous powers, and are 
therefore frequented by many. Some cure the 
lame, and some the blind ; others seem not particu- 
lar, but extend equal relief to all diseases. And 
one well in Err is, most unworthy of its country, is 
so ungallant as to have an utter aversion to the 
entire female sex !* 

If next we turn to that fourth part who can read 
and write, while very many are most highly educated, 
the attainments of the majority are, we fear, but 
slender. In 6 counties, and 74 towns, with popula- 
tions ranging from 2,500 to 12,400 each, there was 
not in 1849 a single book-shop; and in the entire 
island there was. in proportion to the population, 



* Gregg's Visit to Erris. 
6 



82 ALLEGED CAUSES 



only one for every 9 which then existed in Scot- 
land !* While, as to private libraries, it is said that 
in the greater part of Connaught, there do not exist 
as many books as would stock a book-shop in a small 
English town.f And we fear that even these w 
not be found of the most select kind — and that the 
library, so composed, would be one rather of enter- 
taining than useful knowledge. Indeed, so low is 
our thirst for learning, that, except in a few towns, 
the trade of bookseller is bad : that of publisher 
worse ; and that of author worst of all. The latter 
have almost always to look, and usually repair to 
England for a livelihood. We have not more than 
two or three magazines wdiich deserve the name ; 
and the majority of at least our western newspapers, 
while generally dearer than the London Times, are 
sorry samples of a country's literature. In truth, 
the cacoetJies scribendi has never been a failing of the 
Irish. Nor can we say much more for the suetudo 
legendi. Our people are fonder of the newsroom 
than the library ; and when they are found amongst 
the corridors of the latter, poetry too often carries 
it against philosophy — fiction against fact ; and even 
Brown and Newton have generally to yield to the 
rival claims of Scott and Dickens. 

In a word, if you make the experiment, you will 
find that even our best classes are as far behind the 
Scotch in substantial attainments, as they are before 
them in polite accomplishments. Hearken to the 

* Colportage ia Ireland, pp. 9, 10. f Ibid. 



THE MORAL. 83 



conversation in Scotch and Irish steamers, and you 
will often find the Scotch farmer to possess more 
solid information than the Irish landlord. On re- 
ligious subjects especially, the Irish gentleman would 
find himself but a sorry match for many a shepherd 
on the Lammermuirs. Indeed, such is the thirst for 
learning in Scotland, that not only do youths who 
are destined for the merchant's desk usually attend 
the university, but we have known common trades- 
men to work in their shops one half of the day, and 
attend the college classes the remainder. And 
though Ave cannot speak so favorably of the general 
attainments of the English, they have ever been re- 
markably distinguished above the Irish for the im- 
portant quality of being thoroughly acquainted, each 
with his own business, no matter how little they may 
know beyond it. 

Now, if thus it appears that the minds of the Irish 
are left for the most part as waste as their moun- 
tains, we ask, what must be the effect ? Never was 
" knowledge power" so much as now. Education has, 
in fact, become the grand road to advancement ; na- 
tional greatness can now be attained no longer by 
arms, but by arts and sciences ; and in the clear 
conviction of this, other nations are pushing on with 
nil their might in the march of enlightenment. 
Who, then, can wonder if Ireland stationary, has 
been left by the world jwogressive ; if ignorance, only 
matched in the dark ages, should have no chance in 
an age of pre-eminent light ; and if the vast superi- 



84 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



ority of other countries in the whole field of industry, 
from the highest manufacture to the humblest trade, 
should have driven us out of even our own market ? 
Surely the blindest can scarce help perceiving that 
nothing short of a standing miracle could have hin- 
dered the tides of prosperity from leaving such a laud, 
and flowing to other shores. 

Virtue. — Again, the amount of virtue amongst 
us the reader himself can estimate by the following 
facts and statistics. The number of troops stationed 
in Ireland now for many years is surprising: — the 
annual average of the last 8 years has been upwards 
of 25,000 men ! Thus, to control 7,000.000 of pro- 
fessing Christians, it requires near one fourth of that 
magnificent army, which is found sufficient (our na- 
tive Indian troops excepted) to control the greatest 
empire on which the sun ever shone ; containing 
156,000.000 of subjects and tributaries; of whom 
120.000.000 are heathens and Mohammedans ! And 
if to this military force, we add 13.000 constabulary 
and metropolitan police, we have in this small island 
a constant army of occupation of 38,000 men !* 

You exclaim — Can such a force be required % at 
least must it not supersede the necessity of jails and 
gibbets % Alas ! it is a country of prisons as well as 
garrisons. There are in Ireland 155 jails and bride- 
wells ; near 700 law courts, from assizes to petty 
sessions;! and 10,000 persons ministering to justice, 

♦Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 185. f lb. passim. 



THE MORAL. 85 



from the judge to the bailiff.* And can this array 
of tribunals be required ? Enter any southern court 
whatever ; mark the crowds who throng the building 
and hang round the door ; see the piles of indict- 
ments, processes, and summonses ; observe the pro- 
digious mass of business transacted during one single 
term ; and then you may form some conception of 
the gross amount of law going on continually over 
the land with all its disorganizing influences. Yes, 
and though weeks are frequently spent at the assizes 
of one single county, yet the business is often left 
unfinished, and special commissions are sometimes 
required to relieve the crowded prisons. In fact, 
our chief public buildings, in addition to poorhouses. 
are jails and courthouses ; and our most flourishing 
business is that of lawyers and solicitors. 

Again, in Great Britain, with thrice the popula- 
tion of Ireland, and this consisting largely of the de- 
praved manufacturing classes, there were in 1850, 
only 3 1 ,28 1 committals, while there were in Ireland 
in the same year 33,320, or upwards of 3 to 1 !f 
Yet this gives no accurate idea of the proportions of 
actual crime in these two countries : for conspiracy 
against the laws is in many parts of Ireland so per- 
fect, that even assassinations take place in open day, 
within view of scores of people ; and not only do they 
not inform, but so screen the assassin that he often 
eludes the utmost vigilance of the police. Nor is a 
less mournful fact brought out by the relative pro- 

* Onsus. '41. f Thorn's Statistics, 1802, pp. 199, 201. 



86 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



portion of convictions. The same conspiracy against 
law and justice appears in our very courts ; scenes 
of perjury the most revolting are common on the wit- 
ness table ; and in party cases, the frequent expres- 
sion even of jurors, before entering the box at all, is 
that they will " eat their boots" with hunger before 
they find against the prisoner ! Hence the striking 
fact, that while in Britain, of the above 31,281 com- 
mittals, there were 23,900 convictions, or nearly three 
fourths, of the 33,326 prisoners committed in Ire- 
land, there were only 17.108 convicted, or not much 
over one half* 

Perhaps you exclaim — Surely this array of crime 
must at least have been of the petty kind ! Alas ! 
its character was as melancholy as its amount. One 
fifth, at least, of the above convictions were for of- 
fences of the highest class ; while of the entire num- 
ber convicted, there were no less than 1,858 sen- 
tenced to transportation, and 17 sentenced to death !f 
All this, too, in a year of unusual peace ! Then 
what must have been the statistics of our disturbed 
years? In 1848, we had near 40,000 committals, 
almost 3,000 sentenced to transportation, and 60 
sentenced to death ! You say this was during the 
famine period ? Alas ! it was even so. Unawed 
by the wrath of Jehovah himself, as if made worse 
by those fearful judgments which He sent to make 
us better, the period of our greatest calamity was 
that of our most dreadful wickedness, and the work 
* Thorn's Statistics, pp. \'y-\ 201. f Ibid 



THE MORAL. 87 



of blood went on most rapidly beneath the out- 
stretched arm of the angel of death. 

Now, if such an amount of crime loads our caUi- 
dars, despite the vigilance of an omnipresent police, 
the bristling of 38.000 bayonets, and the dread array 
of courts and gibbets, it is surely impossible to re- 
sist the conviction that were this enormous pressure 
removed which keeps down the wild elements of vice 
and crime, they would instantly burst forth with re- 
sistless fury. Indeed, such has been somewhat the 
case, even notwithstanding the presence of this force ; 
for what has been Ireland's whole history but that 
of a moral volcano of pent-up fires and periodical 
eruptions, with whole counties in constant disturb- 
ance, and the entire country in occasional rebellion 1 
Therefore it is manifest that even the foregoing sta- 
tistics give no clear idea of our actual condition. 
Such an amount of crime can only exist where the 
social mass is fearfully diseased ; and when correctly 
yiewed, merely serves, like ulcers on the surface, to 
show the depth and malignity of the internal disor- 
der. And faithfulness compels us at once to say, 
that with many honorable exceptions, there is in all 
classes a want of that high moral tone on which so- 
cial health so much depends, and from the absence 
of which crime and misery necessarily spring. 

We have glanced at our prevailing habits of idle- 
ness, extravagance, and style. Now the history of 
such habits has ever proved that their unhappy vic- 
tims will live, if they can, at the expense of others, 



88 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



when no longer able to live at their own, and not be 
over-scrupulous about the means they adopt to pro- 
long the dire struggle for existence. And so you 
have, in our wretched land, the needy landlord rack- 
ing the tenant, and the thriftless tenant evading his 
exactions ;* the employer taking advantage of his 
servants and tradesmen, and these taking their re- 
venge by general unfaithfulness and frequent combi- 
nations ; in a word, such a state of dishonesty, that 
where any legal flaw is found in their bonds and con- 
tracts, nine out of every ten usually take advantage 
of it. This system of mutual wrong has, of course, 
propagated and spread, giving birth, on the one hand, 
to extortions, distraints, and ejectments, and, on the 
other, to secret scheming, open resistance, and fre- 
quent assassinations. And thus have matters gone 
on for many years, till the unavoidable crisis has at 
length arrived ; j r et you wonder at our country's 
prostration, and speak as if some enchanter's curse 
were mysteriously resting on her ! A country where 
masters and mistresses must generally stand over 
their servants to prevent their work from being de- 
stroyed by carelessness or neglected through sloth ; 
in whose very turnip fields you will see sheds erected, 
where men keep nightly watch against the thief and 
the robber ; in whose markets firkins of butter have 
been seized for being partially filled with clay ; in 
whose farm-yards constant vigilance is required to 

* Inglis' Tour, p. 167. Indeed, these statements are con- 
firmed by every author acquainted with Ireland. 



THE MORAL. 89 



save the fowls from disappearing ; and where the 
employer must often search his men, as they leave 
his stores in the evening, to save himself from being 
robbed ! A country which has long been proverbial 
as the " land of jobbing ;" where exists an entire 
class -called " Sunday men," from never being seen 
except on Sabbaths, because they cannot then be ar- 
rested for their debts : and where not only is the 
arm of Justice paralyzed, but even the hand of Char- 
ity so foully abused, that the paupers often steal the 
bedclothes of the poor-houses which keep them alive, 
and deeds were on all hands perpetrated in connec- 
tion with the late government relief-money, which 
we would positively blush to record ! Is it such a 
country you would expect to prosper 1 Why, un- 
less the laws of Heaven were reversed, and vice, not 
virtue, was the basis of prosperity, the half of what 
we have stated would blast the fairest land ; and yet 
we have not stated the half of what exists. And it 
is blindness, or something worse, to charge the fruits 
of our own misdeeds on a Parliament which, with all 
its erroneous legislation, has, at least, evinced some 
desire to save us from ourselves. 

Does any one deny these fearful statements, or 
say that, even if true, they ought to be suppressed ? 

Alas, to deny them were absurd, and to suppress 
them were criminal. False delicacy has too long 
concealed what faithfulness should have disclosed ; 
and now that our country is sinking so fast, it were 
monstrous treachery to cover up those malignant 



90 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



ulcers of which she is expiring, when her life depends 
upon faithful probing. 

Knowledge and Virtue in Ulster. — If our so- 
lution is the true one, then should Ulster, being the 
most prosperous, be also the most enlightened and 
virtuous part of Ireland. Now, by the census of 
1841, the proportions of the population in each 
province who could neither read nor write, were — 
Ulster, 33 per cent. ; Leinster, 38 ; Munster, 52 ; 
Connaught, 64. Thus, it appears that, of persons 
totally ignorant, there were then in Ulster fewer by 
one third than in Munster, and by one half than in 
Connaught. Not less difference is found in the gen- 
eral intelligence of those who can read and write ; 
and much more in their religious knowledge — the 
northern child evincing an acquaintance with revealed 
truth not often found in the southern grandfather. 
Indeed, the great educational superiority of Ulster 
is clearly proved by the fact, that while Connaught 
almost exclusively depends on National Schools for 
education, and Ulster has many others besides, yet, 
with twice the population, the latter province con- 
tains thrice as many National Schools as the former.* 
And, though a large number of the youth of Ulster 
are educated at the Scotch universities, yet, during 
the session of 1849, the students attending the Bel- 
fast Queen's College amounted to 192 ; while, in 
that of Cork, there were 115; in that of Galway 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 197. 



THE MORAL. 91 



68; and of this latter number some of the most 
eminent were natives of Ulster.* While, as to in- 
dustrial knowledge, we shall only add, that the south 
has been sending individuals to the north to learn 
the cultivation and manufacture of flax ; and the 
National Board is obliged to employ northern fe- 
males to teach their southern schools the sewed mus- 
lin manufacture. 

The difference in moral character is still more re- 
markable. Of the 25,000 troops usually stationed 
in Ireland, scarce 3,000 are found in Ulster, and, ex- 
cept in its southern counties, even these are wholly 
unnecessary. Not a soldier is stationed between 
Belfast and Derry, a distance of 70 miles, embra- 
cing two most populous counties and various large 
towns. Of our 13,000 police, the number stationed 
in Ulster, in 1851, was 1,901, little more than a 
seventh of the force for a third of the population.! 
And our prison statistics prove that even these are 
comparatively unnecessary. Of our 33,326 commit- 
tals in 1850, the number in Ulster was 5,260, not 
one sixth part.| Yet, considering how many crimes 
escape detection in the south, from the prevailing 
conspiracy against the laws, and how few, in the 
north, from the opposite cause, even this is too large 
a figure to represent the proportion of actual crime. 

The character of crime shows a still more re- 
markable difference. At almost every northern as- 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 193. \ Ibid. p. 180. 
% Ibid. p. 199. 



92 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

sizes, the first sentence of the judge's opening address 
to the grand jury, is one of congratulation on the 
peace of their county, and the lightness of their 
calendar. Comparatively few are transported from 
Ulster ; and capital crime occurs there so rarely, 
that of 23 executions which took place in Ireland in 
the years 1849 and 1850, only two occurred in 
Ulster.* 

In short, the vast moral superiority of that prov- 
ince is seen on every hand. In many districts, the 
doors of the dwellings are seldom locked ; in num- 
bers of shops a child can safely deal ; while the 
atrocities which are the rule elsewhere, are the ex- 
ception in Ulster. There landlords are scarce ever 
shot, or murderers sheltered, or wretches known to 
swear away innocent life ; while in most counties, 
assizes last a day or two, jails are half empty, and 
gibbets scarce ever required. During the assassina- 
tions of 1848, one threatening letter was sent to the 
county Derry, to a landlord of high respectability ; 
and it came from Connaught ! The excitement it 
created was intense — abundant proof of the novelty 
of the occurrence ; and the people formed themselves 
into a guard, and kept sentry for weeks round the 
gentleman's demesne : yet some journals would per- 
suade us that, for the last few years, Ulster has be- 
come a scene of agrarian disturbance ! 

Now, of course it is impossible fully to estimate 
the influence exerted on Ulster's prosperity by its 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 200. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 93 



superior light and virtue ; in the security of proper- 
ty, the influx of capital, the encouragement of enter- 
prise, and, above all, that general elevation and suc- 
cess which are the sure fruits of education and 
morality. But some idea of its magnitude may be 
formed from the fact, that with one third of the 
population, Ulster's share of the police, jail, and 
poor-law expenses of Ireland, is, in round numbers, 
but one eighth ! 



CHAPTER V. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 



Thus far have we proceeded in unravelling the 
perplexed web of causes from which Ireland's miser- 
ies have sprung. Will the reader be kind enough 
to accompany us one step further 1 After the most 
careful estimate of the share which various alleged 
causes of our country's wretchedness have had in 
producing it, we have found the chief to be her 
moral degradation. But it is manifest that this 
cause must also be derivative ; and we know of but 
two possible sources to which it can be traced : — ■ 
some radical defect in the people themselves, or 
some malignant influence to which they are ex- 
posed. We have demonstrated that it is not the 
forme)' ; and we have hitherto failed in our search 



94 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



for the latter. We have seen that the Irish are 
neither cursed with Moorish ferocity nor Boeotian 
stupidity, and that neither in the country nor the 
laws can any such evil influence be found as will at 
all account for such fearful degradation. One other 
field of inquiry alone remains. Is the cause to be 
found in our Religious condition ? One would nat- 
urally suppose that religion, professing, as it does, 
to mould and regulate our whole nature, so as best to 
fit us for earth and heaven, should exert on any 
people a paramount influence for good. Why has it 
not been so in Ireland? Has she not a sufficient 
supply of Christian ministers? 2,176 Established 
clergy, from the primate to the curate ; 2,361 
Koman Catholic clergy, with a large auxiliary staff 
of monks and nuns ; and 624 Presbyterian, with 
281 Independent, Methodist, and Baptist minis- 
ters?* Why, with such an army of ecclesiastics, 
Ireland should be " an island of saints ;" and there 
must be fearful guilt somewhere, when it is more 
like an island of savages. Then, we solemnly cite 
them to trial, that we may see at whose door lies 
the tremendous guilt of having wrought such ruin 
on a land so fair. Our rule of judgment shall be 
that of One who cannot err — " Ye shall know 
them by their fruits"! '■ — One who appealed to 
his own works in proof of his divine commission \\ 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, pp. 386-392, 414-421, 422-429, 
430-432. f Matthew vii. 15-20. J John x. 37, 38. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 9' 



disowns the church which cannot do the same ;* 
proclaims all religions imposture that pretend to be 
from God and are not like God :f and declares that 
" in this the children of God are manifest, and the 
children of the devil — whosoever doeth not right- 
eousness is not of God. "| 

4 

The Coincidence. — The two great religious sys- 
tems of these kingdoms are the Protestant and 
Roman Catholic. It is clear from the above test, 
that whichever of these most fuHy promotes " that 
righteousness which exalteth a nation." gives the best 
proof of its divinity. And should it be found that 
one of them invariably exalts, and the other as in- 
variably degrades a people, then is the one as certain- 
ly true, and the other as certainly false, as though 
the fact were proclaimed by an angel from heaven. 

Now, if we compare our two islands, we find Great 
Britain the most happy country on earth, perhaps 
the most Protestant ; and Ireland the most wretched, 
one of the most intensely Roman Catholic. Britain, 
that little spot which would scarce be missed if sunk 
beneath the waves, is the queen of nations, and her 
name a passport among remote barbarians ; while 
Roman Catholic Ireland, in all respects fitted by the 
great Creator for sharing the glories of her sister 
isle, is as utterly degraded as the other is illustrious ; 
and the name of Irishman a term of as deep contempt 
as that of Englishman is a title of honor. We find, 

* John viii. 41, 44. \ 1 John iv. 1-6. % 1 John iii. 8, 10. 



* 



96 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



moreover, the most Protestant part of Great Britain 
— Scotland — the most enlightened and virtuous ; and 
the most Roman Catholic parts of Ireland — Con- 
naught and Minister — the most benighted and de- 
praved. Except in a few Highland districts there is 
scarce a Roman Catholic in all Scotland who is not 
Irish, while, at least until 1817, only one fifth of 
Ireland's population was Protestant.* Yet the 
former is a land of authors, the latter not even a land 
of readers ; the one is as much distinguished for its 
virtue as the other for its crime ; and even a large 
portion of the crimes of the one is committed by 
Irish Roman Catholics, while a mere fraction of the 
crimes of the other is the work of Protestants. f 
And lest this difference might be thought to arise, in 
part at least, from the social or political state of 
these two nations, follow them through all their mi- 
gratory wanderings and it is still the same. In 
every region you find the one filling the post of 
honor and trust, and the other sweeping the streets 
or carrying the hod ; and while the Scotchman in 

* According to the Report of the Commissioners of Pub- 
lic Instruction (1834), which contains our latest denomina- 
tional census, «we find that Ireland then contained 1 517 228 
Protestants, and 6 127 71- Roman Catholics Of Protes- 
tants there were :— Established Church 858 004 ; Presbyte- 
rians, G42 ; 356 ; Dissenters, 21,808 ; total, 1 517 228. From 
the same source we learn that the entire Presbyterian body, 
except about 4,300. are found in Ulster. 

f This fact is forcibly brought out by the jail statistics of 
Scotland. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 97 



Ireland conducts our banks or warehouses, the Irish- 
man in Scotland is found in the coal-pit or the 
prison ! 

If next we turn to Ireland itself, we find from the 
census of 1834, that in Ulster the Protestants then 
were to the Roman Catholics in round numbers as 
11 to 19 : in Leinster as 2 to 11 ; in Munster as 1 
to 20 ; and in Connaught as 1 to 23.* Now, we 
have seen the immense difference between Protestant 
Ulster and Roman Catholic Munster and Connaught 
in their statistics of ignorance, crime, and poverty. 
The brevity of this work has alone hindered us from 
giving the statistics of Leinster. But any one who 
consults the same authorities from which we have 
taken those of the other three provinces, will find 
that in all four as is the Protestantism, so are the 
knowledge, virtue, and prosperity. To give one 
more sample — in the year 1848, there were, in round 
numbers, 3 persons receiving relief out of every 100 
in Ulster; 7 in Leinster; 14 in Munster; and 19 

* The Commissioners of Public Instruction have followed 
the ecclesiastical, and not the civil divisions of the island. 
Now, in their four ecclesiastical provinces, which, though 
not quite coincident with the four civil ones, are sufficiently 
so for our purpose, we find the religious denominations to 
stand thus: — Province of Armagh, 1,1*71,618 Protestants, 
and 1,955,123 Roman Catholics. Province of Dublin, 183,609 
Protestants, and 1,063,681 Roman Catholics. Province of 
Cashel, 115,233 Protestants, and 2,220,340 Roman Catholics. 
Province of Tuam, 45,768 Protestants, and 1,188,568 Roman 
Catholics. 

1 



98 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

in Connaught ! Here is a graduated scale singu- 
larly correspondent to the Protestantism of each 
province, and, excepting Connaught, the very reverse 
of what we were entitled to expect. For, besides 
other advantages, Leinster has long been the seat 
of government, and enjoyed the benefits of the 
•• English pale ;" not only is Minister the garden of 
Ireland, but its population are the oldest inhabitants 
of the land ; while Ulster is a mere colony little 
more than 200 years old, and composed for the 
most part of a few Scotch adventurers, who were 
doomed to struggle for years against a host of diffi- 
culties. 

If from the provinces wo descend to the counties, 
we find the same proportions prevailing with singu- 
lar exactness. To make this perfectly clear, we 
shall contrast a few of the most Protestant with a 
few of the most Roman Catholic counties. In 
Antrim, the Protestants are to the Roman Catho- 
lics nearly as 3 to 1 ; in Down, more than 2 to 1 ; 
in Derry, about 1 to 1 ; and in Donegal, 1 to 3 ; — ■ 
while in Cork, they are 1 to 16; Limerick, 1 to 
22 ; Kerry and Waterford, 1 to 23 ; Mayo and Gal- 
way, 1 to 24.* Now, mark how the light of each 
county is as its Protestantism, with only an excep- 
tion which establishes the rule ; Donegal being 
mountainous, without a single large town ; while 
Cork and Limerick are full of populous towns, with 

* Compare Report of Commissioners of Public Instruc- 
tion, (1834.) 



THE RELIGIOUS. 99 



all their educational facilities. In 1841, the propor- 
tions who could neither read nor write, were — 
Antrim., 23 per cent. ; Down, 27 ; Derry, 29 ; Lim- 
erick, 55 ; Donegal, 62 ; Cork, 68 ; Kerry, 72 : 
Waterford, 73 ; Galway, 78 ; and Mayo, 80.*' Thus 
in the most Roman Catholic counties we have four 
fifths of the people in total ignorance ; in the most 
Protestant only one fifth ; and in all, with the above 
exception, the ignorance increasing as the Protes- 
tantism diminishes ! We might farther prove, that 
in all those counties those who can neither read nor 
write, are almost all Roman Catholics. Instance 
Donegal, the only county out of its place in the 
above scale ; and according to a report of the Rev. 
E. M. Clarke, chaplain and local inspector, of 138 
Protestants confined in Lifford jail in 1849, 91, or 
near three fourths, could read ; while of 922 Roman 
Catholic prisoners, only 213, or not one fourth, 
could read.f Indeed, all those districts which are 
remarkable for their religious and general ignorance, 
such as the West Coast region above noticed, are 
those in which the Church of Rome has for ages 
held unbroken sway. 

Nor is the contrast less remarkable in the crime 
than the ignorance of these counties. In the four 
Protestant counties of Antrim, Down, Derry, and 
Donegal, the gross number of committals, in 1848, 
was not in proportion to the population one fourth 

* Extracted from Census of 1841. 

\ Derry Standard, February 21, 1850. 



100 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



that of the four Romau Catholic counties of Kerry 
Limerick, Gal way, and Mayo ; yet. of the latter, 
none but Limerick belong to the " disturbed dis- 
tricts."* Again, while from the prevailing conspir- 
acy against justice in the latter, their convictions 
are not much over a third of their committals, in 
the former they are nearly four fifths. And there 
is really no comparison as to the character of the 
offences : — for example, of 09 criminals hanged in 
Ireland, in the 6 years ending 1850, 13 were exe- 
cuted in Limerick alone, only 4 were hanged in 
Ulster, and only 1 in any of the above Protestant 
counties — viz., in Donegal, the least Protestant. 
Finally, as a mere sample of their temporal condi- 
tion, we find that, in the 4 Roman Catholic unions 
of Kanturk, Listowel, Castlebar, and Ballinrobe, 
there were, in 1848, twelve times as many paupers 
relieved, in proportion to their population, as in the 
4 Protestant unions of Larne, Kilkeel, Coleraine, 
and Newton Limavady. And the awful state of 
these unions may be conceived from the fact, that 
half the population of Listowel, and one third that of 
Castlebar and Ballinrobe, were at that period obliged 
to support the remainder !f 

Lest any remnant of doubt should hang on the 
reader's mind as to the extent of the coincidence we 
are tracing ; lest he should cherish the least suspi- 
cion that Ulster owes its superiority to some other 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, pp. 199, 200. 
f Ibid./ 1849, pp. 144-148. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 101 



cause which we are unable to discover or unwilling 
to disclose — let us turn for a moment to its own 
counties. While in Antrim, its most Protestant 
county, the per centage who cannot read or write is 



23 ; in Cavan, its most Roman Catholic, it is 51. 
With a population a little over that of Deny, that 
county has annually twice as many committals, and 
not one third the proportionate number of convic- 
tions.* The number of police stationed in Derry in 
1850 was 106, at the expense of £5,299; while in 
Cavan there were 396, at the cost of £16,985 — over 
thrice the expense, and near four times the force, f 
In short, Cavan is notoriously the most turbulent 
county in Ulster, and constantly occupied by a large 
body of military : while the only troops in the entire 
county of Derry, are a depot stationed in London- 
derry city, whose services are scarcely ever required. 
From counties we might even descend to parishes. 
One of the richest in Antrim is the parish of Killa- 
gan. and one of the poorest, that of Cushendun : yet 
in the former the Protestants are to the Roman 
Catholics as 6 to 1, and in the latter as 1 to 9.J 
Do you say the northern Roman Catholic was 
driven back to the mountains by the Ulster set- 
tlers ? Then we ask, What has so generally driven 
the southern Roman Catholic to the mountains too ? 
By what other foes has he been pursued thither 
than those evil habits which compel men to retire 

* Thorn's Statistics, 1852, p. 199. f Ibid -> P- 18 °- 

% Ibid., p. 183. 



102 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

before the advance of light and virtue 1 But not to 
dwell on this, go to some of our finest plains, where 
no stranger has disturbed the southern. In the dio- 
cese of Cashel, Roman Catholics are to Protestants 
in the enormous disproportion of 28 to 1 ; and that 
naturally luxuriant region has long been known as 
the place where the demon of murder holds his 
com t, and those assassination clubs have existed 
wh( re each deed of blood is deliberately planned. 
Do you impute these crimes to landlord oppression? 
W s ask not why such oppression, often as intoler- 
ab e in Ulster, occasions there so few dreadful 
cr mes, and why these few are almost exclusively 
c< mmitted by Roman Catholics ; but we take you 
at once to the towns, where no landlord can rack, 
but men rise or sink by their own conduct. In- 
stance Belfast and Cork, in the former of which 
Roman Catholics are to Protestants as 1 to 2-£, and 
in the latter as 5 to 1 ; and in the ten years ending 
1851, the population of Belfast has increased 
24,400, or near 33 per cent., and its trade and 
manufactures proportionally : while the population 
of Cork has in the same period increased 5,700, or 
not 5 per cent. ; and even this consists for the most 
part of paupers, whom, during the last 5 years, 
want has driven in from the surrounding country ! 
Nay, pass if you please through the streets of each 
town, and you will find that in both, and with the 
very same opportunities, the Protestants are the high- 
est, and the Roman Catholics the lowest of the people. 



THE RELIGIOUS. 103 



We really must not weary the reader : — but as 
the last resistless proof of the fact we are establish- 
ing, examine the individuals of each persuasion, 
and you will find the Roman Catholics as a class 
everywhere the lowest in knowledge, virtue, and 
wealth. — the uneducated, the criminals, the servants 
of their own land. And this is so common as to be 
the subject of frequent remark amongst themselves. 
It is notorious that during the late famine, even in 
Ireland's most Protestant parts, the immense pro- 
portion of the relieving were Protestants, and of the 
relieved, Roman Catholics. The vast majority of 
our prisoners, even in Protestant districts, are Ro- 
man Catholics. And our poor-house, jail, and hos- 
pital statistics usually show, from twice to four 
times as many Romanist as Protestant inmates, in 
proportion to the denominations of each district. 
We have already seen the proportion in the Done- 
gal jail,* and we find much the same in all the rest. 
On the 8th of May, 1850, there were in Derry, 41 
Protestant and 118 Roman Catholic prisoners — be- 
ing three times as many of the latter, in proportion 
to the population of the county ; and on the 14th 

* Mr. Clarke, in his Report, pronounces a high eulogium 
on ■• the admirable conduct of the Presbyterians of Done- 
gal, as evinced by the fact, that of a body exceeding 40\000, 
only 26 were committed within the year." The design 
of this work prevents us from giving the poor-house, prison, 
and education statistics of the various Protestant denomi- 
nations ; but it is only justice to the Presbyterian body here 
to state, that these statistics assign the first place to them. 



104 ALLEGED CAUSES. 



of May. in the same year, there were in Tralee jail 
572 Roman Catholic and only 4 Protestant prison- 
ers. In short, turn where you will, and the result 
is the same ; you can generally tell the prevailing 
denomination from the appearance of every parish, 
every village, and almost every house in the land. 

The Inference. — How is it possible to account 
for this ? If Romanism be true and Protestantism 
false, Ireland's mystery was never half so dark as 
now ; for, in all other cases, has truth exalted and 
error debased mankind : but here we have degrada- 
tion the offspring of heaven, and elevation the child 
of hell. But only venture the supposition that Ro- 
manism is false and Protestantism true, and like 
some dissected map the most shapeless part of Ire- 
land's puzzle falls into its place in a moment. Ob- 
serve how it unfolds every mystery in our physical 
and moral state ; and explains why the " Black 
North" is a garden, and the " Sunny South" a wil- 
derness ; why southern jails are crowded, and north- 
ern ones half empty ; and why the southern, with 
naturally the finest parts, is yet so degraded. Mark 
how it solves our political enigmas : shows why 
Ulster flourishes and Munster declines beneath the 
same laws ; and not only explains why the country 
grows worse as her legislation grows better, but de- 
monstrates that it must be so, if our rulers have at 
the same time been encouraging Rome. See what 
light it throws on Ireland's history ; explaining the 



THE RELIGIOUS. 105 

well-known fact, that it was while her principles 
were Protestant she was the school of Europe, and 
that from the hour the sword of Henry and the 
treachery of Adrian forced her to bow at the Vir- 
gin's shrine, her glory departed, and she sunk into 
wretchedness. And observe how it accounts for 
the alternate fall and rise of the Celt and Saxon in 
the social scale ; nay. for the otherwise inexplicable 
shift ings on that Scale, which we have noticed, of 
the Celtic tribes themselves : explaining how the fall 
of Celtic Ireland dates from her submission to the 
Pope, and the rise of Saxon Britain from the hour 
she flung his yoke away ;* how the Celts of Britain 
continued Popish long after their Saxon brethren, 
and just so long did their mountains ring with the 
shouts of embattled clansmen ; and how, from the 
very moment the Reformation reached them, were 
their claymores sheathed, and their mountains 
echoed far other sounds. 

Nay, the history of Europe is explained by the 
same key. Rome was in her zenith during those 
" dark ages" which men now blush to recall, and the 
darkness thickened the mightier she grew ; but the 
Reformation dawned, and with it rose the sun of 

* We know that the Magna Charta, the Crusades, &c., 
had before the Reformation done much for England ; we 
only maintain that they were more overruled than designed 
for her good. The Magna Charta itself owed its existence 
more to the selfishness than the patriotism of the barons, 
and was meant to increase their own power rather than the 
people's freedom. 



106 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

Europe. And mark how those countries only sprung 
to life which this Reformation visited. Germany 
Holland, Britain, emerged at the same instant from 
Rome and misery : Spain and Italy retained their 
allegiance, and grew more wretched. Ay, and so 
uniform is this connection between Protestantism 
and prosperity, that it seems scarcely affected by 
climate, or soil, or race, or government, or any other 
usually modifying cause. On the mountains of 
Spain, and the plains of Italy ; beneath the despot- 
ism of Austria, and the freedom of Switzerland ; in 
the empire of Brazil, and the republic of Mexico ; 
the same blight marks the dominion of Rome. 
While the same blessing rests on the realms of Prot- 
estantism, whether in bleak Scotland or genial Eng- 
land, or swampy Holland, or Alpine Switzerland, or 
the United States of America, or the remote isles 
of the Pacific* 

* The only exception which even Roman Catholics at- 
tempt to urge is that of Belgium. Suppose we admit it, 
" the exception proves the rule." But local causes may 
modify the influence of any religion. Such causes exist in 
Belgium ; among which are freehold farms and a liberal 
constitution ; and making due allowance for these, the con- 
dition of that country is the strongest confirmation of the 
fact we are establishing. The most prosperous part of Bel- 
gium is the most Protestant; the south-west, the most Ro- 
man Catholic, is styled from its misery the " Ireland of Bel- 
gium." The manufactures, for which that country gets 
credit, were introduced by the French Protestant refugees ; 
while its general prosperity is much overrated, as is proved 



THE RELIGIOUS. 107 



And the most striking fact of all is, that the in- 
tenser the Romanism the blight is the deeper, and 
the purer the Protestantism the blessing is the 
greater. Either the law of moral influence is a de- 
lusion, or the more numerous the priests, they must, 
if their system is good, exert the greater influence 
for good, and a country's virtue will be as the num- 
ber of their chapels. Now, in Scotland, the most 
virtuous land on earth, the priests of Rome scarcely 
exist ; in Spain, the most debased, they are literally 
swarming ; Rome, their headquarters, is a sink of 
iniquity ; and the Irish, everywhere degraded, are 
everywhere the most intense Roman Catholics. 
Unless, therefore, you believe that God's religion 
would blast, and Satan's bless mankind ; "or that 
God, in aiming to raise fallen men, has failed of his 
aim and degraded them, and that Satan, in aiming 
to debase them, has failed of his aim and exalted 
them : — nay, unless you admit the horrid blasphemy, 
that in all ages the Holy One has been the patron 
of vice and the Evil One of virtue — that God and 
Satan have exchanged characters, and heaven and 
hell changed places — then is the Romish system 
weighed in the balance and found wanting. For on 
no land has the Sun of Righteousness ever risen 
without bathing it in floods of light and virtue ; nor 
the clouds of error ever fallen without sinking it in 

by the fact, that no country but Ireland was the scene of 
such horrors during the late potato failure. — (See Edin- 
bv.rgh Witness, Jan. 19, 1850.) 



108 ALLEGED CAUSES. 

darkness and vice. Reader ! is all this true — is the 
half of it true ? Then, if you have any concern in 
the matter, are you bound by the most solemn obli- 
gations to accompany us while we inquire — Why 

IS DEGRADATION THE CONSTANT FRUIT OF RoMA N- 
ISM? 



PART III. 
THE GRAND CAUSE. 

The moral universe, like the material, is upheld 
by a few simple laws-, on the observance of which 
its existence depends. These, like their Author, 
are infinitely wise and good ; therefore, their viola- 
tion must be incalculably disastrous ; and the only 
possible mode of arresting such disaster when it 
occurs, is to restore the violated laws to their full 
sway again. All true religion rests on this proposi- 
tion. And as our demonstration shall be based on 
it, we beg the reader's special attention to it. 

Two of these laws we have found to be knowledge 
and virtue. And it has often been demonstrated, 
that the law by which the stone falls and vapor 
ascends, is not more necessary to the material uni- 
verse than these are to the moral.* But the sum 
of all knowledge is acquaintance with God and his 
works ; and the sum of all virtue, because of all the 
commandments, is love to God and our neighbor.! 
And from these all good springs — whatever coun- 

* See Dick's Christian Philosopher, 
f Matthew xxii. 37-40. 



110 THE GRAND ('.VISE. 

try, whatever world lias most of them, must be most 
prosperous, exalted, and happy. 

Man was made under these laws, and adapted to 
them — with a mind to acquire knowledge, a con- 
science to practise virtue, and a heart to feel love. 
And, of course, as these chief parts of his being are 
improved or injured, must his wiiole nature be ele- 
vated or debased. 

Now. the end of religion is just to train man in 
obedience t<> ihcte laws. And the simplest possible 
test by which to know how far any religion is true 
or false, and therefore how far it is beneficial or per- 
nicious, is to ascertain how far it accomplishes this 
end. Take a simple illustration : — 

Science holds that place in the material world 
which religion does in the moral ; — it deals icith 
the material laws. Now, true science proceeds in 
strict obedience to these laws ; explains every phe- 
nomenon by them, and therefore, like them, is beau- 
tifully self-consistent, unchanging, wise, and bene- 
ficial ; while false science is based on ignorance or 
disregard of these laws, and hence is contradictory, 
fluctuating, absurd, and mischievous. Thus, true 
science explains eclipses and diseases, and regulates 
navigation and the healing art by the laws which 
govern the stars and the human body respectively, 
and is, therefore, the parent of manifold blessings ; 
while false science, disregarding these laws, has 
given birth to astrology and quackery, and those 
endless superstitions, with all their absurdity and 



BASIS OF DEMONSTRATION. 1 1 1 



mischief, which have in all ages made millions the 
dupes of imposture, trembling at eclipses, consulting 
the stars, and using charms for the cure of diseases. 
Just in like manner 1nic religion, regulating oar 
moral cure by the laws which govern our moral 
nature, is beautifully self consistent, wise, and be- 
nign, and is the great parent of happiness here and 
hereafter ; while false religion, disregarding these 
laws, is absurd and mischievous, giving birth to 
those various superstitions which have in all ages 
led men to crouch before priests, and rely for salva- 
tion on the senseless mummeries of idolatry. 

• Try any false science by this test, and it is detected 
in an instant. But just by the same test do we de- 
tect a false religion. See, for instance, how, before 
its tremendous light, Paganism and Mohammedan- 
ism vanish like fogs before the morning sun. If, 
therefore, we find in the Romish system the same 
defiance of the laws of God and of man's nature, 
and the same inconsistency and absurdity, it inevi- 
tably follows that it must be equally false and per- 
nicious. 

Now, we solemnly charge that system with setting 
these laws as completely at defiance, as though its 
aim were to thwart them all ; — with being the enemy 
of knoidedge, virtue, and love, and thus entailing on 
its victims degradation and ruin ; with attempting 
to eclipse the mind, corrupt the conscience, destroy 
the heart, debase the tvhole nature, and thus ruin 
man's temporal state, and blight his eternal prospects. 



112 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



CHAPTER I. 

ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 

The glory of our race is mind. It lifts us above 
the brutes and assimilates us to the angels. The 
religion, therefore, whose effect is to extinguish or 
dull this immortal spark, must be the enemy of God 
and man. 

Now, mark the uniform conduct of Rome. She 
knows that " God is light." and Satan the prince of 
darkness ; that the very first voice of Jehovah which 
echoed through chaos, was, " Let there be light," and 
that the arch-fiend's first utterance over this fair 
earth, was, " Let there be darkness ;" and that ac- 
cordingly God created man in " knowledge," and 
Satan has shrouded the world in ignorance. She 
knows, too, that the grand struggle of God's servants 
in all ages has been to banish this darkness, and of 
Satan's to deepen its gloom ; insomuch, that from 
this their very titles are derived — the " powers of 
light" — the "powers of darkness." 

Now, amongst which of these does she range her- 
self? None knows better than that sagacious church, 
that u knowledge is power," and that the only possi- 
ble way to elevate mind is to enlighten it. She 
knows, moreover, that God only needs to be known 
in order to be loved ; that men hate him because 
they do not know Him ; that religion is therefore 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 113 

called the knowledge of the Lord ; and that the 
shortest way to bring on the millennium, is to " fill 
the earth with this knowledge."* She is well aware 
that it is because the arch-deceiver knows this too, 
that lie has ever struggled to shroud the world in 
midnight; and hence, that to spread light is to fol- 
low, and to extinguish it is to thwart the laws of 
God and of man's nature. And she is equally aware 
that truth has everything to gain by the light, while 
it is only imposture that can profit by darkness ; and 
therefore that all honest men love the light, while 
only Satan and his servants hate it — like^he lurking 
assassin, and for the same reason. Yet in the full 
consciousness of all this — knowing that by opposing 
the light, she not only violates the laws of Grod and 
our nature, but exposes herself to the very ivorst 
suspicions, her whole history has been one dire strug- 
gle against it. 

Religious Knowledge. — Shall we commence 
with her own beloved maxim, " Ignorance is the 
mother of devotion V According to this matchless 
aphorism. He who gave us reason demands its ex- 
tinction as the first requisite of worship ; He who 
made us above the brutes frowns on our homage 
till we make ourselves equal to them; and He, 
whom to know is to love, so ill bears inspection, that 
the less we know Him we love Him the better ! 
Why, it is not even an ingenious apology for delusion. 

* Isaiah xi. 9. 
8 



114 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

and, except for its blasphemy, is really not worthy 
the old serpent. According to it, the most degraded 
savage must be the most devout, Christ's minister's 
the most godless, and Adam vastly improved by the 
fall. In a word, barbarism must be the best state, 
and civilization the worst ; Paganism is the world's 
blessing, and Christianity its curse ; the apostles de- 
served martyrdom, and their murderers canonization ; 
the Prince of Light is the world's worst enemy, and 
the Prince of Darkness its truest friend ! ! God has 
said, " My people perish for lack of knowledge." 
And so to make himself known He has hung out 
Creation, and written his Word ; and on the won- 
drous cross has shown us " deity full robed," " in all 
his round of rays complete." Well, the universe 
gaze enraptured ; heaven rings witn hallelujahs ; 
earth is commanded to echo the news. Forth steps 
this system, and bids heaven and earth be hushed ; 
burns the book which tells of his love — the only 
book God ever wrote ; tears down the superscription 
which even a pagan put over the cross ; and draws 
the pall of night over the world ! 

Now, fancy three thousand priests for ages en- 
forcing this maxim in every corner of Ireland with a 
fierceness of which the following are but a few 
samples. The " greater excommunication" contains 
the most fearful torrent of curses that ever issued 
from the mouth of hell !* Any one so cursed is 

* Of this hideous production, which would fill two pages 
of this book, we give the following specimens : — " May the 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 115 

supposed to be thereby hopelessly damned. No one. 
on pain of the same doom, must speak to him, shelter 
him, or give him a morsel, though starving ; and 
while the " curse" was still powerful in Ireland, you 
might have seen the people running away as the 
cursed individual approached, lest the earth should 
open and swallow them ! Well, let any of their 
flocks send their children to an industrial school, to 
learn virtue, industry, and the fear of God, and this 
curse is levelled at their heads, accompanied by the 
most exciting harangues from the altar ; the people 
are often urged to deeds of blood, and the priest 
sets the example with his horsewhip or cudgel. 
Even in the enlightened county Antrim, priest 
Walsh pronounced this curse on a poor miller for 
reading the Irish Bible to his neighbors. The 
priest of Achill commanded his flock to have pitch- 
forks well sharpened, and, in case Mr. Nangle, or 
any of his agents entered their houses, one was to 
stand at the back door, and another at the front, 

Father, who created man, curse him ! May the Son, who 
suffered for us, curse him ! May the Holy Ghost, who is 
given to us in baptism, curse him ! May all the angels, 
and archangels, and. saints^ damn him ! May the heavens, 
and earth, and all the holy things contained therein, damn 
him ! May he be damned wherever he shall be ! May he 
be cursed inwardly and outwardly ! May he be cursed in 
the hair of his head ! May he be cursed in his brains, 
temples, forehead, ears, eyebrows," &c. &c. Here follows a 
minute enumeration of every part of the body, to the very 
" toe-nails," and each is severally " damned" ! ! 



116 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

to render escape impossible ; while he uttered the 
most frightful imprecations on all who would even 
work for Mr. Nangle, which he described as working 
for the devil ; and he u prayed that those who dis- 
obeyed his orders might not have a child that day 
twelvemonth, and that when they died they might 
have none to stretch them/'* This pious example 
has been diligently followed elsewhere. A late de- 
voted lady was, for keeping a farm school in the 
neighborhood of Milltown, county Kerry, the fre- 
quent subject of such altar abuse by the parish priest 
as we cannot pollute our pages with : her boys have 
been repeatedly cursed in the chapel, and assaulted 
on the roads ; and twice, on the sabbath evenings 
after such denunciations, were a number of persons, 
including the writer, set on and stoned by the Mill- 
town mob. While, on one occasion, at Ballymaciola, 
he and an entire congregation were attacked by priest 
Timlin and an infuriated rabble, and a number of 
persons were brutally beaten. 

The chief object of all this deadly hatred is the 
Bible. When any of their flocks are suspected of 
the crime of stealing a little light from this blessed 
book, they frequently enter their houses and searcli the 
chest, the bed straw, the very rafters, for it ; and 
when they have found it, they have been known to 
take it up in the tongs, lest it should pollute their 
fingers, fling it into the fire, and burn it to ashes ! 

* See Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel's Tour in Ireland, pp. 
171, 172. 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 117 

The Bible ! that blessed volume, which suits every 
taste but a corrupt one ; which teaches nothing but 
truth and virtue, and opposes nothing but error and 
sin : that emanation of God's own mind, and there- 
fore pure as the mind that produced it ; whose plain 
lessons no man can follow without becoming G-odlike, 
and no country could obey without becoming an 
Eden ; that book has ever been the object of Rome's 
relentless hate — cursed from the altar, burned by 
the hangman, and its readers butchered by thousands ! 
What Pope has not hurled his anathemas against it ? 
It was one of the last acts of the late pontiff, and 
one of the first acts of the present one, to write 
" Encyclical Letters" against it. Even the " liber- 
al" Dr. Doyle compared Bible Societies, for mis 
chief, to Whiteboy societies, and the Bible itself to 
the works of Rousseau ; and loudly extolled a cer- 
tain man for having buried in the earth a Bible that 
had been given him ! And not to weary the reader 
with proofs which we might furnish from every county, 
let them take the following sample of the harangues 
of the Irish priests against it. Preaching before 
Dr. M'Hale and a number of his clergy ; and choos- 
ing, no doubt, the theme most grateful to sacerdotal 
ears, Friar Jennings thus exclaims : — " As the 
poison of Bible information is fast falling and spread- 
ing, in this parish particularly, you ought, by all 
means possible, to put a stop to the machinations of 
these heretics ; for assuredly any one who practises 
the reading of the Bible will inevitably fall into 



118 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

everlasting destruction. Why would you permit 
persons who bring with them the worst of all pesti- 
lence, the infectious pestilence of the Bible, which 
would entail on yourselves and your children the 
everlasting ruin of your souls? They who send 
their children to schools where the Scriptures are 
read, do give their children bound in chains to the 
devil !"* 

Is it strange that our country is filled with dark- 
ness and crime, whose very altars ring with such 
heaven-daring blasphemy? This blessed book is so 
pure and holy, that it is easy enough to account for 
the hatred which devils and wicked men feel against 
it. Hence it has ever been the chief ground of con- 
flict between the servants of light and the legions 
of darkness. And in this fearful struggle we have 
ranged on one side, prophets and apostles, and the 
world's brightest worthies ; and on the other, the 
entire brood of infidels and criminals, from Voltaire 
to the vilest wretch that ever rotted in the purlieus 
of vice. Well, here we have this " Church of God" 
leading this crusade against the book of God, and 
ranged with Paine against Paul, with Julian against 
Jesus, with the scum of the earth against its very 
salt. And what is the plea for this deadly hatred ? 
Because it is obscure and misleads the people ! So, 
then, the effect of a book all truth is to deceive, and 
of a volume all divine is to damn ! And He who 
can neither err nor deceive, gave it to us in the full 
* Protestant Penny Magazine, No. xxvii. p. 39. 



, ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 119 

foreknowledge that it would thus mislead us, aud 
the better to insure our ruin, commands us to read 
it;* and His priests must step in to arrest the rash 
production, and save His cause from being destroyed 
by Himself! Why, if there was one shred of hon- 
esty in this plea, then should every chapel resound 
Avith expositions, and every parish teem with com- 
mentaries on it, Yet you will travel days without 
finding amongst their flocks even a Douay Bible 
with their own notes ; and be tired of life ere you 
hear of a course of lectures on the gospel from a 
single altar. Nay, their own primate Cullen rages 
against those who would circulate it as " Bible 
hawkers." and their own organ, the " Tablet," raves 
about the places where it is circulated as " hells 
opened !" But this plea has not even the merit of 
ingenuity. No man can follow its plain directions 
without becoming virtuous : and this is to misunder- 
stand it ! The nursery child whose eye glistens 
delighted at its stories, unconsciously testifies that 
it has reached that highest climax of simplicity, 
plainness enough for the infant mind ; and this is to 
be unintelligible ! What if, after all, its real fault 
is this very simplicity ? Had it been filled with 
such foolish jargon as the Breviary, or the Lives of 
Saints, it might not have been so much hated by 
those champions of plainness, who oifer the very 
prayers of the altar in an unknown tongue. It is 
not the spots but the splendor of the morning sun 

* John v. 39. 



120 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



that makes him feared and shunned by the birds 
of night ; and the Bible's true crime in the eyes 
of Rome, is not its obscurity but its celestial clear- 
ness. 

Again, who can help admiring the matchless de- 
vice of a Christian Ministry, and the moral power 
of a gospel pulpit ; or contrasting the Christ-like 
pastor with the pagan priest, and the divine service 
of the Christian church with the mummeries of a 
heathen fane ? Mark that man of God, moving 
through his flock a living sample of holiness ; on 
Sabbath teaching truth divine, and through the 
week exemplifying it : 

" The man whose heart is warm, 



Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life 

Coincident, exhibit lucid proof 

That he is honest in the sacred cause." 

Now, turn we from this charming picture to the 
Irish priest and altar. Taken usually from the 
lowest of the people, and often from turning the 
spit or tending cattle not their own, the Maynooth 
students are rude enough samples of the lignum 
sacerdotis. You would say they have but one 
chance of becoming educated men and gentlemen, 
and that is found in the college they attend. Well, 
that college is usually Maynooth. In its cells they 
are immured — their books a few monkish authors, 
their companions, youths as raw as themselves — and 
there, as best they can, they must form their man- 



ROME. ECLIPSES THE MIND. 121 



ners on the one, and their minds on the other. 
There they are trained in the casuistries of Bailly, 
the subtleties of Delahogue, and the legends of But- 
ler ; — the first of these being a book so vile, that 
Napoleon himself prohibited its use ; and if this is 
one of Rome's sacred books, what must be her pro- 
fane ones ? There they are taught that Torquemada 
was a saint, and A'Becket a martyr, and the world's 
brightest worthies detestable heretics. And, after 
a course of training, devised with fearful skill, to 
shrivel the mind and wither the heart, in which 
bigotry can scarce help blackening into fanaticism, 
forth they are poured like a fiery flood from this 
' : spiritual vomitory," to spread ignorance and error 
through the land. Forth comes the scion of May- 
nooth — how different even from the "continental" 
priest ! — a sad instance of the intoxicating effects 
of shallow draughts from the Pierian spring, to 
bluster and swagger through some hapless parish, 
and perhaps swear at and horsewhip some degraded 
flock. 

You deem this picture colored ? Could you only 
hear some of those gems of literature which issue 
from hundreds of Irish altars, you would condemn 
it for its dulness. If any hapless parishioner has 
failed to pay his dues, or otherwise incurred the 
wrath of his priest, woe to that person ; for if any- 
thing can be said against his fair name, the congre- 
gation are most likely to be edified with it all. We 
have known even the under garments of the females 



122 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

to be attacked, for want of a better theme. If a 
landlord is to be denounced, or if an election is ap- 
proaching in which an obnoxious candidate must be 
opposed, the work is done in the house of prayer, 
the better to screen the instigator from public jus- 
tice. Who has not heard of the altar advice, once 
deliberately given to a congregation, to kidnap the 
Protestant electors and confine them until after the 
election ? and " if." added the priest. " any one meets 
you and asks you what yon are doing, tell them you 
are hunting corncrakes !" Another priest declared 
that the lady who kept the farm-school already no- 
ticed, was nightly visited by infernal spirits ; anoth- 
er, that devils were swarming in the rafters of the 
house of a Scripture reader named Davern, and 
that he had seen them there himself ; while a third 
assured his flock that Satan had been seen rising out 
of Lough Corrib — his whole body, from his " enor- 
mous head" to his " ponderous tail" being made of 
stirabout, and that therefore if they would not with- 
draw their children from Mr. Dallas's schools, they 
might in the stirabout they got there eat his " satanic 
majesty" himself unawares.* Such outrageous ef- 
fusions are multitudes doomed to receive as their 
Sabbath instructions — not even " stones" instead of 
"bread," but "serpents" instead of "fish." That 
blessed engine, the putjrit, is perverted into one of 
mischief ; the very conduits of the waters of life are 
thus by Satan seized and poisoned ; and yet you 

* Gregg's Visit to Connemara, p. 13. 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 123 

wonder how our countrymen's hearts are so de- 
praved, and their minds so degraded. 

But even these are trifling samples. A flourish- 
ing Presbyterian mission exists in Mayo. During 
the horrors of 1847, the priest of the district as- 
sured the people that the famine was sent them as a 
judgment for tolerating the k> missionaries." One 
of them reminded his flock that it was the north 
wind which usually blasted their potato stalks ; and 
declared that not a single potato would grow in Con- 
naught till the •• northern heretics" were expelled. 
The curate of Ballycastle asserted that " not till 
pearls would grow in his boots," would they other- 
wise expect the potatoes to return. Another de- 
clared from the altar that Mr. Brannigan was not a 
human being, but " one of the fallen angels" who 
had assumed the appearance of a man ; and threat- 
ened that unless the people removed their children 
from the mission schools, he would turn one half of 
them " into hares, and the other into hounds, and 
thus amuse the country gentlemen with a first-rate 
hunt." And such fears did the poor people enter- 
tain, lest this metamorphose should actually take 
place, that they were only induced to let their chil- 
dren remain at the schools by Mr. Brannigan prom- 
ising, that if the priest turned them into hounds and 
hares, he would restore them to the human form !* 
You say such cases are rare — we assert they are of 

* Mr. Brannigan's speech before the Irish General As- 
sembly in 1847. 



124 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

constant occurrence ; and we are only amazed at the 
ignorance which at this time of day would question 
their prevalence. Why, miracles themselves are 
every-day events amongst us ; and what wonder, if, 
when France is blessed with its Rose Tamisiers, and 
Italy with its winking virgins, " Catholic Ireland" 
should be vouchsafed some celestial manifestations 1 
You say the priests do not attempt such things 
in England ? What ! amongst such obstinate her- 
etics, who would only laugh and cry delusion ! — 
who sneer even at those miracles which Newman 
himself has just countersigned ; and won't so much 
as believe that St. Anthony did sail to Russia on a 
mill-stone, and St. Denis, when decapitated, carried 
his head in his hand for miles ! But Ireland is a 
land of the faithful And so she is honored with 
such miracles as the " Estatica" of Youghal, and the 
devil cast out of men in the shape of a crow ! And 
from Lough Derg to Groogan Barra, from Croagh 
Patrick to Carrigaline she is covered with wells and 
hills, over which, of course, priests are the presiding 
geniuses, and which dispense blessings of every kind. 
In these the blind receive their sight, the lame walk ; 
every form of malady flies ; and when the cure fails, 
want of faith is of course the reason. What, though 
other lands rejoice in their protecting relics : though 
to oblige the faithful, the angel Gabriel has given a 
feather from his wing ; the Virgin Mary a bottle 
of her milk ; and the blessed Saviour has so multi- 
plied his coat, that you have one at Treves, another 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 125 



at Home, and half-a-dozen elsewhere; and each 
apostle has kindly left his head in so many different 
places, that if all his heads were collected, he would 

have at least as many as the great Red Dragon :* 

what, though by reason doubtless of our propinquity 
to heretic England, we are denied such blessings, 
and have not so much as an apostolic toe-nail, or 
rotten tooth to bow down to, — with our miracle- 
working priests, we can manage to get on without 
them. If our fishermen want a good fishing season, 
they have but to send for the priest ; and for the 
small charge of 25. for blessing a boat, and 2s. 6d. 
for blessing a net, they may have as many miracu- 
lous draughts as they please. When a pig or a cow 
takes ill, let the priest be paid for saying a mass or 
two, and if the owner has faith enough, the animal 
is sure to recover. Nay, if you want every form of 
goblin kept at a respectful distance, only get some 
" holy water" or " blessed clay" from the priest ; and 
there is not an inhabitant of the infernal world that 
will not fly before you ! 

Such are a few specimens of the teachings and 
practices of our Irish priests. And now, we ask, 
what can you produce worse amongst the jugglers of 
India, or the fetish priests of Africa? Yet these 
are but specimens — we are prepared with many as 
bad, if challenged to produce them. To what utter 
prostration must these men have reduced their peo- 
ple's minds, before they could believe or tolerate 
* Seymour's Pilgrimage to Rome. 



126 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



such imposture ! And if Rome can so besot and 
kill the finest mind as to have in a few years trans- 
formed Newman himself into a devout believer in 
her most drivelling legends, what must be the effect 
on our countrymen of a system which thus at once 
excludes the truth and teaches such impudent false- 
hoods ? Or what mind could help sinking into utter 
decrepitude when thus deprived of its proper ali- 
ment, and fed instead on a compound of trash and 
poison, such as never yet has failed to benight and 
stupefy the finest race that has ever been exposed to 
its blasting power ? 

Secular Knowledge. — We have seen that Ire- 
land does not know her alphabet, and that in every 
parish the ignorance deepens as Rome prevails. 
Now, the omnipotence of the priesthood is their 
own loudest boast. Until very lately, they ruled 
the country — the government itself was obedient to 
their will — and from the centre of their respective 
parishes they were virtually able to look around 
and exclaim, " I am monarch of all I survey." 
Then surely no one will doubt that such men, who 
could drive their people like sheep to the hustings, 
and through the worst of the famine keep the Re- 
peal chest full, could have planted the country thick 
with seminaries, and made Ireland the glory instead 
of the shame of the age. When have they ever 
once so employed their powers? They have not 
been slow to wield them in other directions ; but 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 127 

where are the libraries they have formed, or the 
lectures they have founded? They have raised 
millions for political objects ; how much have they 
raised for literary ones? They have formed scores 
of societies for agitation and mischief; point out 
one they have ever projected for the mental improve- 
ment of the masses ? Why, all that has ever been 
done to elevate their own people has been effected 
by Protestants ; and the only share the priests have 
had in each movement, has been to give it their 
most determined opposition. When an effort has 
been made by industrial schools to send a few rays 
of light into those benighted western regions, of 
which for ages they have held undisturbed posses- 
sion, they manifest a fury which proves but too 
clearly how they " hate its beams," and tremble at 
the approach of the schoolmaster. One female 
teacher the author saw in a dangerous fever, 
brought on by a priest entering her school, and 
flogging the terrified children. Lately a Ballina 
priest was prosecuted for beating a poor widow on 
the head because her child attended an industrial 
school : and you may see, in a late " Tyrawley 
Herald" a long letter from his pen in defence, and 
even laudation, of the horsewhip, as one of the 
choicest implements of ecclesiastical discipline. 
And when a Scotch merchant established a sim- 
ilar school in Westport, from which the Bible was 
wholly excluded, the priests never rested till they 
destroyed it. National schools have been offered 



128 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

them, giving them " complete control," yet numbers 
have refused to accept them : many who at first 
adopted them, did so in a great measure out of op- 
position to those Protestant ministers who were un- 
friendly to the National Board ; the more sagacious 
have long seen that these schools are springing a 
mine beneath their feet, and would gladly close 
them if they could ; and as the best proof of this, 
every means are employed, from the thunders of the 
Vatican to the decrees of Thurles, to destroy those 
Queen's Colleges, which are founded on the very 
name principles. 

You reply, there are many exceptions. Of course 
there are ; yet, perhaps, not so many as you think. 
Do you not observe, kind reader, that our few 
priestly patrons of learning are chiefly found in 
Protestant districts — that their schools are fre- 
quently commenced after the Protestant ones, and 
as frequently cease when, from any cause, the latter 
are given up ; that we never heard a word of a Pop- 
ish University till after the Queen's Colleges were 
established ; and that some of the worst enemies 
of our industrial schools are now establishing sim- 
ilar ones, as the only hope left them of wiling their 
children away from us % Yes ; and if the Ulster 
Roman Catholic is more enlightened than his Con- 
naught brother, think you it is Popery he has to 
thank for it ? Can you really doubt the doom that 
would have befallen him, had he been cradled in 
those western regions where Popery reigns, and 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 129 

with it mental " cliaos and old night ;" or he at any 
loss to know what the Connaught priests would do 
for Ulster, did they possess the power ? 

But, of course, it is not in these islands, where 
Rome's constant restlessness proves how fettered she 
feels, that you are to look for her genuine character. 
Go to those dominions where she " sits a queen," and 
the prince does homage to the priest ; and where has 
she ever gained the ascendency that her first step 
has not been to extinguish the lights ? Go to her 
capital, and see the vast machinery there constantly 
employed to stifle the free utterances of mind. Be- 
hold that " conclave of owls," the Congregation of 
the Index, ready to pounce on every author who 
would dare think for himself, and consign him to the 
Inquisition for the good of his soul. 

By that ghostly tribunal has the traveller's port- 
manteau been ransacked. In their expurgatory and 
prohibitory index, the first book proscribed is the 
Word of God ! And while you search it in vain for 
the vilest productions, you see in its dark catalogue 
such matchless works as those of Locke and Bacon, 
Addison and Hale, Cowper and Young, Mosheim 
and Robertson ! Instructive contrast, truly, be- 
tween Home and England ! Earth's most illustrious 
authors the one rears and the other proscribes. 
True, painting and sculpture have flourished under 
Rome, and there is a good reason. Such men as 
Raphael and Angelo were this giant enslaver's best 
servants, by filling her cathedrals with that charm- 

9 



130 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

ing " drapery," which spell-binds the ignorant devo- 
tee ; for none knows better than Rome how to speak 
to the senses by the statued aisle, and the painted 
window, and the Gothic edifice. Painting and sculp- 
ture were therefore smiled on by Rome ; but under 
such patronage, they have been well compared to 
beautiful captives chained to the chariot-wheels of 
some Ethiopian divinity.* But look to the history 
of other sciences, and Rome has been little better 
than their jailor. How often have her police mount- 
ed guard at the astronomer's door, and watched even 
the inspirations of the poet ! It was this infallible 
church which persecuted Harvey for discovering the 
circulation of the blood ; beat Prinella with rods for 
saying the stars would not fall ; and seven times 
tortured Camparella for asserting there was a mul- 
titude of worlds. Yet this is the church which Paul 
Cullen has had the effrontery, in his Drogheda man- 
ifesto, to pronounce the very light and civilizer of 
nations ! — a church which, in the name of Paul, im- 
prisoned Columbus for saying there was a new world ; 
and, in the name of Joshua, imprisoned Galileo for 
the blasphemous assertion that the earth moved. 
Why, she has been the grand impediment to the 
world's progress. Long was medicine doomed to 
see inoculation classed among the mortal sins ; long 
had surgery to beware of making one heretical in- 
cision ; spectre monks have haunted the geologist in 
the bowels of the earth, and dogged the geographer 
* Wylie on the Papacy. 



ROME ECLIPSES THE MIND. 131 



on its surface : — the earth herself durst not go round 
until she got leave from the Pope ; and had Geor- 
gium Sidus appeared but a century sooner than he 
did. he would no doubt have been anathematized for 
his profane intrusion. In comparison to Rome, in- 
fidelity is a patron of light : — the disciples of Vol- 
taire at least think — those of t: the church" must 
simply believe ; infidel France is a land of authors — 
Popish Spain a land of ignorance. Mohammedan- 
ism itself is more friendly to learning — the arts 
flourished in Arabia, and Spain owed her greatness 
to the Moors. Nay, even Paganism cries out against 
the injustice of being here classed with Popery : — 
Rome, once the seat of learning, is now its sepulchre ; 
— the muses have long fled from their ancient Italian 
haunts, and in every part of that classic land the stran- 
ger meets the ruins of Pagan greatness ; and the Fo- 
rum, which once rung with the inspirations of Tully, 
now resounds with the babble of ignorant monks. 

Such, then, is the system beneath which Ireland 
groans, — a system which, for darkness, leaves hea- 
thenism behind, makes the office of teacher a bur- 
lesque on the name, and gives the infidel ground to 
say, that the mythology of Greece or Egypt is more 
friendly to knowledge than the religion of Jesus, and 
that in this respect Peter can but ill compare with 
Osiris or Olympian Jove. Surely, then, we have 
sufficiently accounted for Ireland's ignorance. Be- 
neath a system which has for centuries " squatted 
like a night hag" on the energies of Europe, is it any 



132 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



wonder she should suffer so deep an eclipse ? — a 
system which, wherever it has swayed its sable 
sceptre, has turned back the sunbeams of light 
on the dials of the world ! And lest there should 
remain the least doubt on the subject, she has her- 
self of late been kindly doing much to help the 
feeblest faith. Those ' : dark ages," which men blush 
to remember, she now openly parades as the very 
glory of history. The most peerless volumes of 
modern times, she avows her desire to supersede 
with the fables of mediaeval monks. Her long-buried 
trumpery is exhumed ; her obsolete calendars are re- 
produced ; her silliest fooleries ostentatiously parad- 
ed ; and St. Lawrence 0' Toole is invoked in her 
public gatherings. Yes, and it is the moment when 
the whole world is rushing on at its highest speed, 
amidst the blaze of the nineteenth century, that her 
priests, like creatures of night, would choose to crawl 
back into the dungeons of the twelfth, and are doing 
their very utmost to drag the nations after them. 



CHAPTER II. 

ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 

We have proved that sin must bring ruin, and 
virtue prosperity. It was sin that blasted paradise j 
that scathed the earth ; that burned up Sodom ; 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 133 

that drowned the world ; that kindled hell ; above 
all, that crucified the Saviour. Sin is that hideous 
thing which has turned angels into demons ; conies 
sounding up from the depths of hell in the wailings 
of the lost ; and could not be forgiven till the sword 
of justice was quenched in the bosom of mercy, and 
the Lord of glory had borne such punishment as 
none but Omnipotence could inflict — or bear. No 
wonder, truly, if a God all virtue should evince his 
supreme abhorrence of a thing so dreadful ; and if 
his entire administration should aim at its destruc- 
tion. So to arrest this fell thing all providence and 
grace conspire : but to spread it with all its miseries 
is Satan's constant aim. Therefore, the religion which 
conduces most to virtue, must most accord with the 
laws of God and the interests of man ; while that 
which would relax the obligations of the divine law, 
must needs be a traitor to God, and a curse to man. 
Now, what has been the tendency of Rome ? 
Remember that virtue is man's normal state, and 
vice his abnormal ; the one his healthy condition, 
the other his disease : the one, in short, his greatest 
blessing, and the other his greatest curse. There- 
fore, to be abs Dived from virtue were his greatest 
calamity, and the religion that would pretend to 
absolve from it. must be his worst foe. And yet the 
grand aim of Rome's theology seems to be, to get 
rid of that intolerable burden, virtue, which forms 
the heaven of saints and angels. 



134 TOE GRAND CAUSE. 

Her Principles. — First, The doctrine of venial 
sins proclaims the vast majority of man's transgres- 
sions to be undeserving of a hell at all. A little of 
penance or of purgatory suffices to expiate them, 
and even these can be vastly mitigated by prayers 
and payments. Then as to the few mortal sins 
which remain, the transgressor need feel no uneasi- 
ness ; for his church has provided so many facilities 
of pardon, that not even, the vilest wretch can perish, 
who is not bent on his own destruction. As oft as 
he pleases he can repair to the confessional, and 
return as pure as the virgin snow. Nor is it at the 
confessional merely he may be cleansed ; all along 
the road of life, fountains of purification are placed 
at convenient distances. Scarce has he emerged 
from the worn}), when baptism makes him an "infant 
cherub." Confirmation in due time cleanses the 
" sins of his youth " Every Sunday he may par- 
take of the eucharist ; and no sooner does he swal- 
low the " wafer-god," than his title to the skies is 
renewed. And as his whole way through life is 
thus carefully guarded, so at the hour of death 
extreme unction comes ' = to lubricate his passage 
into eternity." Nay, lest by possibility these numer- 
ous safeguards should prove insufficient, the realms 
of purgatory stretch away beyond the grave. More- 
over, not only may the sinner obtain pardon for past, 
but license for future sins. From the days of Tet- 
zel, who made Europe an indulgence-shop, the privi- 
lege of committing the blackest crimes has been 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 135 



bought at Rome's spiritual bazaar. Simon Magus, 
in his " iniquity," thought to purchase the gift of 
God with money ; but here Simon Peter is made to 
leave him far behind, by selling sin itself for gold. 
The commandments of God have been set up to 
auction, and the luxury of breaking them sold to the 
highest bidder. We ask, What must needs be the 
effect of such a system, by which poor human nature 
is not even left to its own corrupt tendencies, but 
God himself is made to hold out premiums and 
incentives to sin ? How is it possible for Popish 
lands to escape being reel with crime, and foul with 
pollution? Some wretch is tempted to do a deed 
of blood ; while yet he hesitates, conscience remon- 
strates, reason condemns, and the looming gibbet 
grimly frowns on the half-formed design. But, 
amidst this array of stern remonstrants, one kind 
friend appears, and whispers a more accommodating 
morality — tells him, that if man is severe, God at 
least is indulgent, and has empowered him to par- 
don the darkest crimes that ever judge condemned, 
and send to heaven the foulest criminal that ever 
justice sent to the gallows. Is this a colored pic- 
ture? Then is all history a fable. Deeds have 
been done beneath Rome's fostering shade, from 
which even corrupt nature recoils ; the civil power 
has often had to protect public virtue from the 
ecclesiastical; and iniquity has often fled to the 
priest for shelter from the policeman, and found a 
sanctuary by the altar from the terrors of the bench. 



136 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

You say the priest admonishes the confessor? — 
what cares he for all his lectures if pardon forms 
the closing sentence ? Now, surely this alone would 
sufficiently account for Ireland's crowded jails and 
loaded calendars. But lest we should wrong this 
system, let us turn for a moment from its principles 
to its practice. 

Her Priesthood. — If there is any good in a 
religion, it will, of course, be found in its ministers. 
They are at once its exponents and examples. In 
them it lives and breathes as its visible embodiment. 
And if. in all times and places, the majority of them 
have been good or bad, this alone stamps the charac- 
ter of the system ; and ever must, till grapes grow 
on thorns, and figs on thistles. Besides, it is rea- 
sonable to think that Christ's ministers should be 
Christ-like — that the servants of the Holy One 
should themselves be holy — especially if their very 
work is the spread of holiness. Would it not be 
monstrous to suppose that the thrice-holy Jehovah, 
" who cannot even look upon sin," would freely 
admit its approach to his altar, and appoint, as 
" ensamples to his flock," men who are a disgrace to 
human nature ? Do we not find, on the contrary, 
that his prophets and apostles were men of the 
most heavenly minds, " full of faith and 'of the Holy 
Ghost?" 

Now, what is the character of the Irish priest ? 
Surely he must be the purest of men who is admit- 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 137 

ted daily to God's inmost pavilion, to learn the 
secrets of the invisible world ; to whom are entrust- 
ed the keys and even the thunders of heaven; nay, 
who multiplies at will the body, soul, and divinity 
of his Maker. At least, of all ministers he should 
be the most spotless. The Roman Catholic has no 
other evidence but his word of the existence of a 
purgatory, whether his parent is there, whether he 
is escaping, or when he escapes ; nor no other guar- 
antee but his faithfulness for the right performance 
of those ceremonies on which his own eternal safety 
hangs. All depends upon the priest ; — the divine 
authority of the " church" on his veracity — the sal- 
vation of the people on his fidelity. In a word, on 
that man's single shoulders rest the tremendous 
responsibilities which attach to the keepership of 
the gates of heaven. Would you not expect such a 
man to be as bright a saint as Noah, Daniel, or Job 
— to be the very image and reflection of Christ 
himself? Well, we have already seen a little of his 
character — how he can handle the horsewhip, and 
burn the Bible. And let the reader remember, 
that of his conduct in these matters we have given 
the most meagre samples. Such an everyday affair, 
for instance, is priestly opposition to the Bible, that 
if you ask the children of our mission-schools who 
hates it most, they answer, " The devil;" and if you 
ask, Who next to the devil, they at once reply, 
"The priest!"* Even the American ambassador, 
* Greg's " Visit to Erris," p. 34. 



138 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

on his late visit of kindness, could not allude to 
the blessings that volume had conferred on his own 
glorious country, but forth comes a growl from St. 
Jarlaths, and the Popish papers suppress the senti- 
ment. 

But we have other charges still to prefer. There 
are few precepts of the decalogue with which the 
Irish priest has not taken liberties. Profane swear- 
ing, that lowest of vices confined to the very canaille^ 
that vernacular of the ring and the cock-pit, is by no 
means uncommon amongst them. One of our mis- 
sionaries, who met a priest on a Relief committee in 
1847, was obliged to threaten him with exposure if 
he did not desist from blaspheming ; and never was 
it the author's lot to listen to such a torrent of oaths 
as Priest Timlin poured forth during the riot at 
Ballymaciola. Yes, and though his entire conduct 
on that occasion was the theme of every newspaper, 
not a whisper of disapproval was ever known to be 
breathed by priest or bishop over broad Ireland. 
His brethren clung around him during his whole 
trial ; and to this hour he rejoices in the undimin- 
ished sunshine of his own diocesan's favor. 

We fear we can say as little for the temperance 
of the Irish priesthood. Indeed, the "jolly priest" 
is a stereotyped phrase amongst us ; and the scenes 
which are sometimes enacted amongst these rever- 
end symposiasts, are said to be of the most extraor- 
dinary description. On such occasions, not much 
respect is shown for the glasses or decanters, and 



, — '~1 

ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 139 

sometimes little more for each other. We have it 
on the best authority, that a dance on the table is 
nothing new, and that even to be under the table, is 
by no means uncommon. Nor do they always con- 
fine themselves to midnight convivialities ; the sun 
often looks on their frailties ; and their flocks have 
occasionally to help them home from a fair. In the 
open street of Killalla, one of them in this deplora- 
ble state got hold of the Rev. Mr. Rogers, and ac- 
tually kissed him, as the preface to some request he 
was going to make ! 

Again, a disregard of truth has been an old fea- 
ture of Rome. To her belongs an entire order, 
who have " reduced scheming to a system, and wear 
the mask by rule ;" who unblushingly avow that not 
only truth, but every other moral obligation, must 
yield to the " interests of the church :" and the im- 
mortal Pascal has taught us how well they have ex- 
emplified this iniquitous doctrine. There is not a 
crime in the dark lists of perdition, that the " Socie- 
ty of Jesus" have not over and over again commit- 
ted, for the glory of God and the good of men's 
souls ! Yet the Jesuits are Rome's best-beloved 
agents ; and numberless bulls and decrees demon- 
strate how generally she has practised their tenets. 
That meanest of vices, lying, — that grand auxiliary 
of all other vices ; of which the Devil is, by pre- 
eminence, called " the father ;" and to be charged 
with which even worldly men count the foulest in- 
sult ; has been the favorite vice of the infallible 



140 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

church. From her earliest days to this very hour, 
when she has just absolved Joseph of Austria and 
Ferdinand of Naples from their most solemn oaths 
to their subjects, oaths have been but straws to 
Rome ; she has laughed at the most sacred pledges. 
and in almost all her standards, from the decrees of 
the Lateran to the class-books of Maynooth, has 
openly taught that truth must never stand in the way 
of the " church's" interests. Here is, perhaps, the 
worst feature of the system, indicating but too clear- 
ly its paternity. You see it in its every doctrine — 
enough of truth to make its lies go down with the 
ignorant. You see it in all its practice — seldom the 
flat lie, but one masked beneath some shuffle or quib- 
ble, designed as a loophole in case of detection. In- 
stance her denial, in the face of all fact, that she 
forbids the use of the Scriptures, on the miserable 
plea, that any one may read them who has a license 
from his priest ! Instance the pitiful Jesuitism of 
the Popish bishop of Clifton, in the case of Miss 
Talbot, and of Wiseman himself, in the matter of 
the cardinal's oath, as thoroughly exposed by Dr. 
Cumming. Indeed, the brazen audacity with which 
the Popish priests can put forth the grossest un- 
truths, could scarcely be credited by those who do 
not know them. Priest Walsh, of the glens of An- 
trim, cursed from the altar the miller already no- 
ticed, and several others, for acting as Irish teach- 
ers ; and yet, immediately after, proclaimed through 
all Scotland that there was not an Irish teacher in 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 141 

that whole neighborhood ! In the case of the Mil- 
town riots, not only did the parish priest publish in 
the papers the grossest untruths : but the attorney 
for the defence, who himself had no peculiar inter- 
est in the matter, sent the Cork Examiner a report 
of the trial, containing at least fifty falsehoods, 
and in which, besides a long speech from himself 
which had never been spoken, he makes several wit- 
nesses depose to the reverse of what they actually 
did swear. Yet even these are but trifles. It is a 
common remark in Ireland, that no Popish jury will 
convict a Popish priest, nor Roman Catholic witness 
testify against him ; and not much wonder, if he can 
send them to heaven or hell at his pleasure. In the 
trial of Priest Timlin, one unhappy wretch, when 
being sworn, was detected putting the book to his 
chin, in the belief that, if he could avoid kissing it, 
he was not sworn at all. Another swore, first, that 
he could speak no English, then, that Mr. Johnston, 
who could speak no Irish, had a long conversation 
with him about attending the service at Ballyma- 
ciola ! The charge against the priest was established 
so clearly, that the barrister, himself a Roman 
Catholic, while charging the jury, administered to 
him the severest castigation, assuming, as a matter 
of course, that he would be convicted ; yet the jury, 
in the full knowledge of all the facts before they en- 
tered the box at all — for the outrage took place in 
the neighborhood — at once acquitted the prisoner. 
Nay, what is still more instructive, this was univer- 



142 . THE GRAND CAUSE. 



sally expected before the trial commenced at all. 
" As soon as I see who the jury are," said a Roman 
Catholic attorney, engaged in the prosecution, to the 
author, " I'll tell you whether you'll get a verdict ;" 
and the instant they were sworn he whispered again, 
" You may make up your mind you'll get no ver- 
dict !" 

It is needless here to speak of the blessings of 
the Sabbath — that heavenly institution so worthy 
of God and beneficial to man. It is enough to say, 
that wherever it is abolished, true religion expires. 
The system, therefore, that would destroy or weaken 
its obligations deals a fatal stab to the best interests 
of man. Yet by the priesthood of Ireland the first 
day of the week is made the hack of the other six. 
If there is to be any political meeting, the Sabbath 
is preferred as being an idle day. At a great " Sun- 
day Demonstration" held in Tipperary in 1847, 
Archdeacon Laffan ridiculed the hypocrisy of some 
who had sufficient conscience left to decline attending 
on that day. And the largest procession we ever 
beheld, got up to welcome O'Connell to Cork after 
his victory in the State prosecutions, and reckoned 
to contain seventy thousand individuals, took place 
on the Lord's day, by the appointment of the priests : 
and in order to give the entire day to it, they an- 
nounced on the previous Sabbath, that mass usually 
over at noon would that day end at eight in the 
morning. We have seen a priest in Connaught 
coolly superintending his laborers in the field on the 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 143 

Sabbath. And another in the same province, not 
only publicly advertised the auction of his crops for 
that day, but actually held a raffle in his chapel after 
" Sunday mass, 1 ' having previously distributed lot- 
tery tickets of which the following is a copy : — " To 
be raffled by the Rev. Arthur O'Dwyer at Athenry, 
on Sunday the 18th of May. 1851, a beautiful lever 
watch. The proceeds of the raffle to go to the re- 
pairs of the Newcastle chapel. Tickets, one shilling 
each ! !" 

So much has been said by others on priestly vio- 
lations of the seventh commandment, that we are 
disposed to omit that branch of our mournful sub- 
ject. The first revealed remark ever made on man 
by (rod was, u It is not good for man to be alone," 
and all experience proclaims its infinite justness. 
We cannot imagine a more satanic device than that 
which cuts off the Romish clergy from the softening 
and refining intercourse of woman. But if there is 
anything in their church worse than celibacy, it is 
the diabolic contrivance of the confessional. That 
single device sends its blasting influence in all direc- 
tions, and in none more fearfully than in that of the 
priest himself. Oh, how that man is to be pitied 
who is continually exposed to th corruptions of the 
confession-box, and whose mind is the very cesspool 
into which the abominations of a whole parish are 
constantly running ! But if even one of these de- 
vices is so dreadful, what must be the combined in- 
fluence of both ? Think of a young, full, hot-blooded 



144 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

priest daily encountering in his confession-box trem- 
bling youth and beauty, perhaps some one in partic- 
ular, the poison of whose eyes he may have uncon- 
sciously imbibed, and whom, if he dare, he would 
make his virtuous wife. : - 1 will suppose him a saint 
— unable to fly, he apparently groans, sighs, recom- 
mends himself to God ; but if he is only a man, he 
shudders, desires, and already without knowing it, 
perhaps he hopes. She arrives, kneels down at his 
knees before him. whose heart palpitates. You are 
young, or you have been so ; between ourselves, 
what do you think of such a situation ? Alone most 
of the time, and having these walls, these vaulted 
roofs as sole witnesses, they talk — of what ? Alas, 
of all that is not innocent. They talk or rather 
murmur in low voice, and their lips approach each 
other, and their breaths mingle. This lasts for an 
hour or more, and is often renewed."* And the 
subject of conversation, such as could not elsewhere 
be hinted at ! The priest bound to put suggestive 
questions enough to pollute even angelic purity, and 
the penitent bound to answer them ; the Romish 
doctors having ruled that concealment from a motive 
"so vain" as modesty " would be sacrilege."! All 

* Paul Lewis Oourrier. 

f Not only Dens but Delahogue an<l Bailly, MaytwotJi's 

recognized class-books contain questions so execrable that 
no man of the least delicacy couM repeat {hem. Dens, 
vols, i, iv.. vii., passim; Bailly. ii. pp. 228 229. iv. p. 48-3; 
Delahogue, Tract. De Pen., pp. 164. 169. 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 145 



this done in the name of holiness ! Why, to say 
that corrupt nature could stand such an ordeal, out- 
rages common sense. To say that it has done so 
belies all history. From the pontiff to the coadju- 
tor, the priesthood of Rome have in all ages revelled 
in debauchery. The Vatican has been turned into a 
seraglio : and as for the humble cure, his flock has 
often compelled him to live in concubinage as a pro- 
tection to society ! While nunneries — those " sacred 
retreats" from which, according to M'Hale, " the 
odor of sanctity and virtue is diffused" — have ever 
been such scenes of pollution, that even so late as 
1845. Mr. Seymour found that four nuns were en- 
ceinte in one convent at Rome.* Can we imagine 
then, that the Irish priest, his brethren's equal in all 
other vices, should be their superior in this alone 7 
Alas, despite a system of secrecy fearfully perfect, 
their impurity too often transpires. But for the 
sake of a country which, notwithstanding their cor- 
rupting influence, still bears a high character for 
chastity, we refuse to lift the veil. 

In truth, we are weary of the subject, and shall 
only add. that on the Irish priesthood are directly 
chargeable many of those outrages which disgrace 
our country. Many a man besides Major Mahon 
has proved 'the victim of altar harangues ; and while 
the wretched dupes of priestly instigation have per- 
ished on the scaffold, and now sleep in the grave of 
infamy, those who in heaven's eyes are the real mur- 

* Pilgrimage to Rome, p. 187. 
10 



146 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



derers still walk at large and disturb the country. 
Our missionaries are often obliged to prosecute their 
poor dupes for outrage ; and yet while doing so, are 
painfully sensible that they are not touching the 
real culprits ; they feel the presence of the priest 
like the great tempter in every scene of riot they 
encounter, yet like him he is invisible and eludes 
their grasp ! Keeping always out of " shot range" 
himself, his part is to instigate — that of his flock to 
do and suffer. Instance the abortive rebellion of 
1848. For with all their zeal, the Irish priests have 
never shown much taste for fines and imprisonments, 
and seem in no wise ambitious for the honors of 
martyrdom. Assassination itself, they have all but 
lauded. Archdeacon Laffan, in the meeting afore- 
mentioned, pronounced " John Bull" too great a 
coward to shoot a man from behind a hedge ; and 
when the altar denunciations of '47 became so fre- 
quent as to engage the attention of parliament, and 
draw forth some letters to M/Hale from English 
noblemen, he not only defended his priests in char- 
acteristic terms, but called on one of the writers to 
put on sackcloth for daring to interfere, and to " weep 
between the porch and the altar." Now, who that 
considers the power of the priesthood can wonder at 
the crimes which follow such conduct, or doubt that 
if they so pleased our country would enjoy tranquil- 
lity 1 It was in this full conviction that when, in 
the above-mentioned year, a certain district began to 
be disturbed, some of the people met and resolved, 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 147 



that if any belonging to it was shot, they would shoot 
the priest by way of reprisal. The effect was sur- 
prising. No more thunder pealed from the altar — 
no more threatening letters reached the post-office 
— the happiest change seemed to have come over 
priest and people — and tranquillity reigned in the 
parish ! 

Such, then, is a brief sketch of the Irish priest- 
hood. We have no doubt its correctness will be 
impugned : but this will only be an additional proof 
of our charge, that Rome will deny anything when it 
suits her purpose. In ignorant circles, her priests 
have been known to deny the existence of the Inqui- 
sition, and to pronounce the Bartholomew massacre 
a vile slander. Doubtless many of the Irish priests 
are moral men, especially in Protestant districts ; 
for Rome distributes her troops with consummate 
skill ; and as she has ever had her Murray s for the 
court, and her M'Hales for the mob, so has she al- 
ways assigned her more upright priests to the Prot- 
estant localities, and those of more dubious charac- 
ter to the Popish. But to the foregoing statements 
we defy contradiction, and none know this better 
than themselves. Why should this sketch be deemed 
incorrect? Are the priesthood of any other land 
much better ; and are they not ivorse where the 
shade of Popery is the deepest % Rome, its capital, 
has ever been a den of priestly corruption, and the 
" Vicars of Christ" have been foremost in guilt. 
Baronius, himself a cardinal, declares that they 



148 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



" were not pontiffs, but monsters ;" and proves the 
charge by facts with which we must not pollute our 
pages. In the " church's" palmiest days, the priests 
enjoyed exemption from the dominion of the laws, 
and verily they required it ; for crimes that would 
shock the modern criminal daily stained their hands ; 
while such monsters as Alexander VI. and Caesar 
Borgia made the palace of the pontiffs a sink of 
abomination, in which incest, sodomy, and murder 
were of frequent occurrence. 

The People. — If such are the pastors, what must 
be their flocks ? No stream rises higher than its 
fountain : and the inspired aphorism, " Like people 
like priest," is sustained by all experience. Indeed, 
it is pre-eminently true of the Church of Rome ; for 
while in other churches the pastor is only one instru- 
ment of grace, in her he is its sole dispenser — the 
only channel of the waters of life ; and if that chan- 
nel is poisoned, his flock have no chance of escape. 
In our chapter on Ireland's Moral State, we have 
seen how sadly this is verified in her case. And will 
the kind reader pardon us if, for the sake of a people 
who have so long borne the blame which should have 
rested on their blind guides, we decline returning to 
the subject, farther than by giving two examples — 
the one of the frequency, the other of the atrocity, 
of crime amongst us ? He will remember that the 
district of Cashel is amongst the most Popish in 
Ireland. A few years ago, the following paragraph 



ROME CORRUPTS THE CONSCIENCE. 149 



appeared in the papers under the usual heading, 
" State of the Country:" — "'The Cashel Bench of 
Magistrates. — The following have been the gentle- 
men who, within the last few years, usually attended 
this bench : — R. Long, father shot, himself twice 
fired at ; W. Murphy, father shot ; S. Cooper 
brother shot : Leonard Keatinge, nephew of Mr. 
Scully, shot ; E. Scully, cousin of Mr. Scully, shot ; 
Godfrey Taylor, cousin, Mr. Clarke, shot ; William 
* Rowe, shot : C. Clark, brother shot ; nephew, Mr. 
Rowe, shot !" Again, amongst the cases tried by 
the special commission of 1847, was that of a party 
who went to the house of a man named Hourigan, in 
order to shoot him. He was absent ; but the ruf- 
fians, instead of retiring and waiting for another op- 
portunit}', shot his wife dead in the kitchen. A child 
lay dying in the room : they entered, dragged him 
out of bed, held him up against the wall, and — un- 
moved by the pleadings of terror, unsoftened by the 
pallor of sickness, unawed by the presence of death 
— they presented a pistol, and shot him dead on the 
spot ! ! 

Perhaps you say, such wretches, though professed 
Roman Catholics, were without the pale of their 
church. Suppose we granted this, it would ©nly 
prove what all history confirms, that there is a point 
in Rome's demoralizing course at which she loses 
hold of her own votaries — that in her dreadful pro- 
cess of social putrefaction there is a stage at which 
portion after portion sloughs and comes off. The 



150 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

brigands and strirri that infest the towns and moun- 
tains of Italy herself are terrible proofs of this truth. 
But we cannot grant even this supposition, for 
crimes have been sometimes concocted on the way 
from the chapel. Nay, devotion and murder have 
occasionally so closely followed each other, that, like 
the Thug of India, the assassin has prepared for the 
deed by repairing to the altar, and, as Mr. Nolan 
has proved, often confessed to the priest the medi- 
tated crime, and thence departed to commit it ; and 
to crown all, the priest's vow of secrecy has hindered 
him from giving the doomed victim the least inti- 
mation of his danger.* Besides, it is notorious that 
most of all our petty offences — larcenies, for instance 
— are the work of mass-going Roman Catholics, and 
are duly confessed to the priest ; yet, though we are 
told Rome always requires the penitent to restore the 
stolen property, how few cases of restitution are ever 
heard of amongst thousands of cases of theft ! The 
only parties who seem to profit by the trade, are 
the thief who steals an 4 the priest who forgives him. 
Such are the moral fruits of Popery ! Hedged 
round with malign influences, — kept in such igno- 
rance that many of their sins they do not even know 
to be such, you would say vice was with our country- 
men a thing of moral necessity. And can it be 
equity to assert the ; ' majesty of British law" on such 
degraded creatures, and pass by the men who are 

* See several fearful cases of this kind in Rev L. J. 
Nolan's pamphlet. Dublin : 1838. 



_J 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 151 

chargeable with this degradation ? Oh, one would 
think mere humanity would hasten to the rescue of 
a people so trampled beneath the feet of the Beast. 
The wail of the emigrant who is torn from his home 
appeals to Christian pity against it. Every bugle 
that sounds from its hundred barracks tells heaven 
and earth of the ruin it has wrought. The blood 
alike of murdered and murderer cries to heaven for 
vengeance on it. The dying groans of multitudes, 
as they rise on the wintry winds, tell of its dreadful 
havoc. The throes of an expiring country bear aw- 
ful testimony to its deadly venom. And, oh, what 
thousands of ruined souls will rise up in judgment 
against it at the last ! 



CHAPTER III. 

ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 

Man has a heart ; and what a dismal world it 
would be if he had not ! Now, mark how wonder- 
fully the God who made it adapts his laws to it, or 
rather it to them. " God is love." and his religion 
is love. Its grand theme is — " God so loved the 
world," &c. Its divine founder is the loving Sav- 
iour, " who loved us, and gave himself for us." Its 
great command is — love one another ; and its heav- 
enly influence such, that none can fully practise it 
without becoming angels of kindness. On the 



152 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



other hand, all false systems are cruel as their 
author. Their gods are demons ; their rites often 
tortures ; their priests oppressors : their arguments, 
the sword : while their code often teaches men to 
expiate their crimes by crimes still greater, and 
their dark domains are " full of the habitations of 
cruelty." 

If, therefore, we find that Rome withers the 
heart ; if, instead of inspiring love, she has rather 
proved its very sepulchre, mingling blood itself with 
her sacrifices ; if hers is a god who delights in the 
pilgrim's blistered feet and bleedin'g knees, a service 
which has borrowed many of the tortures of pagan- 
ism, and a spirit which transforms men, not only 
stones, but demons — then again is she convicted as 
the enemy of Grod and man. 

Love to Gtod. — Love to God is the " first com- 
mandment ;" that church therefore cannot be His 
which makes it not her first object. Now, a very 
simple test of a church's real spirit, is her treatment 
of His " means of grace :" instance the Bible — the 
Sabbath — and prayer. The child, in proportion as 
he loves his parent, will of course love to hear from 
him, to visit him, and to linger in his presence. 
Well, we have seen how Rome treats the Divine 
Word. So frequent are her Bible burnings, that 
almost every paper gives some fresh instances. In 
the " Mayo Constitution" of the 25th November, 
1851, the Rev. Mr. Townsend of Ballyovee, re- 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 153 

ports the burning of two Testaments in his own 
presence by a monk, and adds, that " the ruffian 
thrust the burning book into Ins face, triumphing 
over his dark deed of iniquity, and calling it a 
' damnable' and ' heretical' book." The Bible ! that 
divine message of love from our Father in the skies, 
pored over by thousands with tears of ecstasy ! Oh, 
fancy a son hunting like a demon for his father's let- 
ters, then making a bonfire of them, raving the while 
against all who dare murmur disapproval, and yet 
pretending to love that father ! 

We have also seen how Rome treats the Sabbath. 
That blessed day, so ardently loved by every true 
saint, is to her so irksome that she cannot even pay 
it a decent outward respect. It is to her such a 
bore, that it is generally over by noon, — that is, 
when the mass is concluded, — and the remainder of 
the day is given up to amusement. In purely Pop- 
ish countries, the evening is spent in fetes and the- 
atricals ; in our own, often in dancing and card- 
playing — the priests themselves mingling in the 
scene. And one of them who was lately rebuked 
for this profanation, coolly replied, that rest and 
recreation were the very design of that day, and a 
" little innocent amusement" he saw no harm in ! 
Was there ever clearer proof of Rome's spirit than 
this 1 The wicked say, " When will the Sabbath be 
gone?" the believer says, " When will it return 1 ?" 
and each following his tastes, spends it, the one in 
his Father's service, and the other in his. Yet 



154 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

here is a K church of ' God" wliicli has ever take i 
the lead in the ranks of Sabbath-breakers. 

Take one other example. Prayer, the saint's <i< i - 
light. is Rome's most usual penance. At every con- 
fession prayers arc dealt out by Papal Rome, as 
stripes used to be by Rome Pagan, in tens, twenties, 
thirties, and with a similar object. So that you will 
see thousands of penitents rhyming over their paters 
and aves with all possible speed, as though trying 
how soon they could get done with the task ; and 
that they may not utter one prayer beyond the pre- 
scribed number, keeping the exact " count" upon 
their beads — an invention contrived for this very 
purpose. Communion with God, then, is the pen- 
ance of Rome : and it is this feeling of penance — 
itself a sin most monstrous — which is designed as 
satisfaction for all other sins ! Only fancy a child 
deeming converse with his parent his greatest pun- 
ishment, and counting this dreadfully unnatural feel- 
ing a merit in his parent's eyes ! 

Then it is a system of merchandise as well as 
slavery. That God who gives everything; "who 
gave his only begotten Son," " without money and 
without price," and commands his ministers " freely 
to give as they have freely received." is represented 
as making his own house a " house of merchandise," 
and giving nothing without a quid pro quo. Salva- 
tion itself is made a system of traffic, in which gold 
is the currency, grace the commodity, the altar the 
shop, and the priest the salesman. For to Rome 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 155 



belongs the glory of the discovery, that in heaven as 
ou earth. ■■ money answereth all tilings." Without 
u you need expect little, but with it men have got 
indulgences to murder their own parents; and so ac- 
customed are the people to pay it on all occasions, 
that they have sometimes asked our missionaries 
when about to pray with them — - But, sir, what will 
you charge us?" When a chapel is to be repaired, 
the gates are often shut on the Sunday morning 
with sentinels stationed at them, and none allowed 
to enter who do not first pay ; the priest himself 
perhaps superintending the scene with cudgel in 
hand, and freely employing it against such as would 
pass without contributing.* At baptisms, the priest 
receives from 25. 6c?. to 5s.; at weddings, from £1 
to £20 ; and often as much at each funeral for mass- 
es for the soul of the departed. In these cases a 
plate goes round, the priest often accompanying it ; 
if each contributor gives not according to his sup- 
posed means, he is often most liberally abused ; and 
so shameful are the scenes of this nature, which are 
frequently enacted at the very grave, that they have 
by the vulgar been called " canting the corpse." In 
short, be the service what it may, whether at the 
baptismal font, the hymeneal altar, the dying bed, or 
the gloomy grave, the horseleech is there, crying, 
"Give, give." On every mile of the road of life 
there is a toll-gate, ay, and beyond it too. As has 

* Mr. Inglis was eye-witness to a scene of this very de- 
scription in Cahir. (See Tour, 1834.) 



156 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

been truly said, their people pay for coming into the 
world, pay for passing through it, pay* for goiug out 
of it, and pay after they leave it ! And so lucrative 
is this last device alone to an avaricious priesthood, 
that purgatory has been sarcastically termed, " the 
fire that makes their pot boil." Oh, Simon Magus 
was discovered to be " in the gall of bitterness" for 
" supposing that the gift of God could be purchased 
with money," but here are professed successors of 
the apostle who detected him, who will not part with 
it except for money 1 The spirit of Christian love 
prompts even the layman to " do good to all as he 
has opportunity," but here are ministers who disre- 
gard such opportunities as are not golden ones. 
Dear reader, do you doubt the truth of this charge ? 
We can hardly wonder that you do ; and yet, alas ! 
it is too well sustained. The present wonderful 
openings in Connaught were in some measure caused 
by this very circumstance ; for, during the famine, 
the priests, in numbers of cases, would not take the 
trouble of crossing a few fields to anoint the dying, 
because they had no money to pay them ! And this 
is the religion of the Grod of love ! Why, humanity 
would frown the wretch out of society who would 
refuse to save a drowning man unless paid for his 
trouble ; but here are men, who profess to be able 
to save souls to any extent, yet will let them perish 
to any extent unless their purse is replenished by the 
transaction, and who thus prove themselves impos- 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 157 

tors, who do not believe in their own masses, or 
wretches who will not offer them. 

Once more, it is a religion of cruelty ; proceeding 
throughout on the assumption that God demands, 
not the sanctification, but the sacrifice, of the nature 
he has given us. and representing him as delighting 
in such tortures as are presented to Juggernaut or 
Kali. With Rome the degree of sanctity is always 
measured by that of voluntary suffering ; and she 
holds up to our admiration such devotees as Hard- 
wigg of Poland and Margaret of Hungary, because 
they so mangled their bodies that ' ; they could scarce 
be recognized." Read the lives of her saints ; see 
how the biographer kindles into ecstacy as he tells 
you how one mangled his body with scourges, an- 
other rolled himself in thorns, a third nailed himself 
on a cross, and a fourth burned himself in the fire. 
Or visit some of her holiest scenes of devotion — 
Lough Derg. for example. See that group of pil- 
grims approaching it ; it is a bright autumn after- 
noon, but there is a gloom on their brow, strangely 
contrasting with the sunshine around them — say, is 
it the spirit of him who exclaimed, ' : I joyed when 
they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of 
God ?" They approach that dismal lake, surrounded 
with dreary bogs, and selected with Rome's usual 
skill to impress the mind with gloom. Arrived at 
that stygian water, they are ferried across to Station 
Island, and there undergo a course of self-inflictions, 
not much exceeded at the island of Gonga Sago'r. 



158 THE GRAND CAUSE 

And is this the sweet service of the God of love? 
Think you that poor devotee, who has finished his 
last round at Patrick's Purgatory, with his clothes 
all torn and draggled, his knees all cut and bleeding, 
can dream that that Saviour, who delights in this un- 
meaning torture, is the same with him who yearned 
over the widow of Nam, and wept by the grave of 
Lazarus ? And vet even tins is little ; he is taught 
that this same Saviour has prepared for him another 
purgatory, of which Patrick's is a feeble type : where, 
according to the best authorities, some are transfixed 
with red-hot nails, others lashed by devils with 
dreadful whips, others gnawed by fiery serpents with 
ignited teeth, others pierced with the flaming stings 
of burning serpents, and others still shot out of 
belching volcanoes, and received back into their 
burning craters, to be shot out again and again ! ! 
Such a saviour he may dread ; Ave ask, can he pos- 
sibly lore him ? Oh, what a hideous caricature of 
that blessed Emmanuel, who suffered in our stead ! 
Yet to these torments he consigns his own children 
for those transgressions which, but for his own licen- 
ses to sin, they might never have committed ! ay, 
and the period of their torment there he makes to 
depend much on the length of their purse. The 
poor may burn on in those flames — the rich may es- 
cape in a month. Their priests could pray them all 
out, but will not, unless paid for it, and that by 
Christ's command ! ! And yet you wonder, reader, 
at^the irreligion of our hapless countrymen, to whom 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 159 



the God oflove is thus presented as the God of cru- 
elty — the heavenly countenance of the Prince of 
Peace distorted into the face of a demon — the Sun 
of Righteousness overspread with the lurid hue of 
an eclipse — and by the same act. the glorious cross 
veiled from their trembling gaze and such purgato- 
rial horrors presented in its stead. 

Love to Man. — The religion of Jesus makes us 
kind. To use the words of the prophet, it turns 
the wolf into the lamb. Shedding its kindly in- 
fluences over the whole face of society, it stills the 
stormiest elements of life ; and makes the flowers of 
social happiness, so often laid prostrate by the tem- 
pests of human passion, to raise their drooping heads 
and exhale a sweeter perfume. And even War, 
that cursed demon that Christianity is destined ulti- 
mately to destroy, it meantime half disarms : distils 
some drops of mercy into the poisoned cup he holds ; 
and half quenches the firebrands he flings around. 
In a word, beneath its heavenly sway hearts cease 
to bleed, and tears to fall ; a thousand streams of 
relief flow, as if by enchantment, through the haunts 
of misery ; and the downcast mourner looks up and 
smiles. 

Has this been the influence of Rome — that church 
which trusts so much to her -• good works," and keeps 
a treasury of supererogatory grace ? Alas ! she has 
done less to relieve human wretchedness, and more 
to create it. than all the other churches in Christen- 



160 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

dom ; and while we find within her bosom a Bonner, 
a Beaton, a Cortez, and an Alva, in vain do we search 
for a Clarkson, a Wilberforce, or a Howard. 

The same spirit of cruelty which fancies the Most 
High to take pleasure in tortures, is exhibited even 
to the lower creation. We refer not merely to the 
bull-baiting scenes of Popish Spain, which even 
Andalusian ladies delight to visit : we would only 
ask you to examine the torn backs of the donkeys 
and horses at any of our southern fairs, and then 
attempt if you dare to enforce the act against cruelty 
to animals. Nor is this want of feeling less displayed 
by the children of Rome in their dealings with one 
another. Roman Catholic servants will generally 
tell you that they prefer Protestant masters to those 
of their own persuasion, and assign the reason that 
they are kinder to them when in health, and far 
more tender in sickness. Ask their own poor 
whether they get most relief from Protestant or 
Roman Catholic. — from the parson or the priest? 
Often have we ourselves asked them why they do 
not go to their own clergyman for alms, and been 
answered, " God help us, we need not go to him." 
We have made careful inquiry at some of the prin- 
cipal hospitals in Ireland, and the results have in 
this respect proved truly instructive. In the north 
and south infirmaries of Cork, the vast majority of 
the inmates are Roman Catholics, and of the con- 
tributors, Protestants, in proportion to their respec- 
tive populations in the city and county: while one 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 161 



of the directors of the Belfast Hospital lately char- 
acterized it as "a Protestant Hospital for Roman 
Catholic inmates." It is in vain to attempt to 
ascribe this difference in any respect to recent 
calamities, for it has always existed. In 1834, Mr. 
Inglis found 2 145 persons on the books of the Dub- 
lin Mendicity Soeiety House, of whom only 200 
were Protestants; and though the vast majority of 
the inhabitants of that city are Roman Catholics, 
he states, that for every pound subscribed by them, 
there were £50 subscribed by Protestants. It is 
equally vain to plead that Roman Catholics are 
usually poor — if the church of Rome so impover- 
ishes a people as to make them a public burden, is 
she not all the more bound to give them what relief 
she herself can afford ? Yet. even during the period 
of the famine, when every drain of selfishness should 
surely have been stopped to swell the streams of 
charity, the vast proportion of the relieved were 
Roman Catholics, and of the relieving. Protestants ; 
and while the Protestant laborers of Ulster and 
Britain were sending their wages to the famished 
south, it was the topic of public remark, that balls 
and entertainments were going on as usual in several 
southern towns though paupers were nightly dying 
in their street:; ! 

We have already shown how little the priests seem 
to comprehend the Divine aphorism, " It is more 
blessed to give than to receive :" but the cases of 
extortion we have noticed are such as are sanctioned 

11 



162 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

by the church. Sometimes, however, the priests 
carry on a little spiritual foraging on their own au- 
thority. Even in Ulster, we have often seen the 
small farmers driving to the priests haggard their 
half-load of corn, under the name of the " priest's 
stook." In Connaught, a similar tax is levied, called 
the " priest's ' bart. 1 " At the various " stations" for 
confession which are held in different parts of each 
parish, a " treat," as it is termed, must be given to 
the priest ; and the poor people have been known to 
sell their pig, in order thus to entertain him ! Such 
a burden is this felt, that if any of the flock are sus- 
pected of Bible-reading, or other heretical practices, 
he often, by way of punishment, appoints stations at 
their houses : and so intolerable has the custom 
grown of late, that in some dioceses, a breakfast has, 
by the bishop's orders, been substituted for a dinner ; 
while owing, doubtless, to the waning influence of 
the priests, the Synod of Thurles has found it ne- 
cessary to discountenaDce the practice altogether. 
During the late famine — when the Hindoos of Cal- 
cutta and the Copts of Alexandria were sending re- 
lief to Ireland — its own priests, in many cases, not 
only left the people to perish, but robbed them of 
the alms bestowed by heathen and Mohammedan 
charity. One priest made large sums by selling 
holy salt to cure the potato disease, and many gave 
their last sixpence to purchase this specific ; others 
sold the relief-tickets with which they were intrust- 
ed for gratuitous distribution ; while several gave 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 163 



them to the people on condition that the first relief 
procured should be brought to them, as payment of 
arrear-dues !* Of some, it was reported that they 
never gave a satisfactory account of the relief which 
was entrusted to their care ; and such currency did 
these rumors gain, that those who had first entrust- 
ed them therewith, soon thought it better to com- 
mit it to other hands. And Dr. MHale himself, 
while appealing through the papers to public sym- 
pathy on behalf of the starving masses around him, 
was convicted by the relieving officer as a defaulter 
in the payment of his own poor-rates ! The author, 
while in Connaught in the winter of 1848. was as 
much struck with the fulness of the priests' haggards 
as with the emptiness of their people's ; and, as an 
explanation of the phenomenon, a brother mission- 
ary related the following anecdote : — In the neigh- 
borhood of Westport, dwelt a poor man who sup- 
ported a family on five acres of land. When the 
potato failed in 1847, his all was destroyed, save a 
small patch of oats, which amounted, when reaped, 
to sixty sheaves. The priest came round for his 
" bart." The wretched man pointed imploringly to 
his wife and family. You say, surely the priest gave 
him something : at least, it is impossible he could 
have asked him for anything ; and, for the sake of 
our common humanity, one would fain so believe. 
But, deaf to every entreaty, dead to every feeling, 
he commanded his servant to count into his cart 

* Ireland in 1846, pp. 174-176. 



164 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



20 sheaves of the 60, and then he marched off with 
his booty ! ! Yet these men. who have only them- 
selves to support, are the professed ministers of Him 
who " was rich, yet for our sakes became poor." and 
from his great tribunal will proclaim to the wicked, 
" I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat," &c. 
No wonder the remark should be common amongst 
their flocks, that " a priest's money never wears weUV 
Yet this is the system which purchases heaven by 
liberality and love— has whole orders bearing such 
musical names as ' : Christian Brothers" and ' : Sisters 
of Mercy" — and especially boasts its convents as 
sanctuaries of heavenly charity ! Well, we shall 
presently take a peep into these sacred retreats, and 
shall only now remind the reader, that such cases as 
those of Miss Talbot, the Misses M'Carthy, and 
Maria Monk, show that, within the abodes of celes- 
tial love, there is pretty frequently betrayed a hank- 
ering for the gold that perisheth, — ay, and various 
ot/ier passions of a terrestrial type ! 

Yet this is but lingering on the threshold of our 
theme. If you wish to see the inmost soul of Rome, 
consult the records of persecution. The only weapon 
Christianity knows, is the " truth in love." Besides, 
its Author knows that mind may be convinced, but 
cannot be coerced : that force may make hypocrites, 
but never true Christians ; that the heart can only 
be won by kindness, and to attempt to force affection, 
is only to create disgust. Two individuals compete 
for your heart ; one of them imprisons, tortures, 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 165 



burns you ; you can scarce help abhorring him. The 
other yearns over you. showers kindness on you, lives 
for you, dies for you : can you refrain from loving 
him 1 As acts the latter, so acts Christ — according 
to the laws of God and of our nature. As acts the 
former, so does Rome — these laws seem to give her 
small concern. We will not insult the reader by 
proving, for the thousandth time, that her tenets are 
persecuting. We wonder why others are at so much 
pains to do this, because, forsooth, Rome denies it. 
We look to her whole career, their best commentary, 
and find it to be one of blood. The boot and thumb- 
screw have been her favorite arguments ; and, as a 
living writer has calculated, she has shed more holy 
blood than all the gibbets on earth have shed of 
felon blood ! Look to the Irish massacre of 1641, 
planned by the priests in Multifarnhan Abbey, in 
which 60.000 Protestants perished amidst their mur- 
derers' exulting yells.* Witness the rebellion of 
1 798, which, at first wearing a political aspect, soon 
became in many parts little else than a butchery of 
Protestants, under the direction of the priesthood. 
Or look to other lands ; and is there a country in 
Europe whose soil has not been fattened with the 
blood, whose air has not been rent with the groans 
of Rome's victims ? Pope Julius caused, in seven 
years, the slaughter of 200.000 Christians; 100,000 
fell in the Bartholomew massacre; 100,000 in the' 
butcheries of the Waldenses and Albigenses j 

* Some say 100,000. 



166 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



1,500,000 Jews, and 3.000 000 of Moors, were 
slaughtered in Spain ; 15 000.000 in South America 
and Cuba ; while the cold-blooded butcheries of the 
Dutch by the Duke of Alva, of the English by 
Bloody Mary, and of the Spanish and Italians by 
the " Holy Inquisition," are familiar to all our 
readers. The latter infernal tribunal has destroyed, 
in Spain alone, 2,000,000 of lives ; # while Rome 
is calculated to have shed, in all, the blood of 
68,000,000 of the human race ! ! 

Yet this brief summary gives no such conceptions 
of the character of Rome, as the circumstances under 
which these butcheries were eifected. You see her 
popes and cardinals coolly plotting the extermination 
of whole countries, and then chanting Te Deums 
when their schemes have succeeded : and you see 
them executing their plots with a refinement of 
cruelty, of which only hell seemed capable. Who 
can read of the engines of torture by which myriads 
were tormented in the dungeons of the Inquisition, 
without fancying himself in the prisons of the damned, 
and surrounded by the fiends of perdition ? Yet 
these horrors were matters of jest to the inquisitors 
themselves. " Give me a Jew," said Azzerro, the in- 
quisitorial butcher of Cordova, " and I will show you 
in my crucible a residuum of ashes !" And the most 
revolting feature of the case is, that these atrocities 
have all been perpetrated in the name of Jesus, and 
for the love of God ! The female martyr, whilst 
* Llonnks' History of the Inquisition. 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 167 

being torn to pieces by these monsters, was ever and 
anon greeted with these words, — u Beloved sister, re- 
cant." Heaven's blessing has been invoked on their 
most shocking butcheries, and their victim's groans 
have been drowned by their chants and hallelujahs. 
When the edict of Nantes was revoked in the face 
of the most solemn oaths, thereby effecting the ruin 
of myriads, a hoary-headed wretch exclaimed, " Lord, 
now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation ! !" Yes. in the name 
of Religion deeds have been done at which human- 
ity shudders ; and the rude soldier lias wept over 
the innocents his priest has forced him to slaughter. 
And such a system of blood you must believe to be 
divine, such fiendish cruelty to spring from heavenly 
love, and deeds that would disgrace the bloodiest 
idol, we must father on the meek and gentle Jesus ! 
Oh. think of that •• Lamb of God" careering through 
the world with a sword in one hand, and a crucifix 
in the other : followed by a train of inquisitors, bear- 
ing such instruments of torture as Indians never 
dreamt of! ! 

You say she is changed ? Then produce the man 
who has heard her lamentations over the holy blood 
smc has shed. Changed ! What blood} 7 decree has 
been known to revoke — what fiendish butchery 
to deplore? Were we not told the other day by her 
own organ. U Univers. that another Bartholomew 
massacre had now become necessary ? Changed ! 
Witness in proof the scenes of Madeira and those of 



168 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

Tahiti — Tahiti, that little isle in the distant Pacific, 
transformed by gospel missionaries from an island 
of savages to one of saints, Rome beheld from afar, 
like Satan eyeing Paradise, and never ceased her in- 
trigues till it lay torn and bleeding at her feet, 
Changed ! Witness the Inquisition at Rome, un- 
veiled by the revolution of 1849 to the gaze and 
execration of Europe, with its eoncealed traps, deep 
wells, quick-lime pits. &c. : and which was restored 
to its ancient vigor the instant the Pope returned. 
There is a change, we own, from the tiger in the for- 
est to the tiger in the cage ; but he must be judi- 
cially blind, who does not see, from all her late pro- 
ceedings, that she only wants the power in order to 
bring back the days of Smithfield. Have we not 
given sufficient proof of her spirit amongst ourselves 
in the scenes of A chill, of Ballymaciola, of Milltown, 
and of Dingle? " I have told all my people," ex- 
claimed priest Connolly, "to hiss, shout, and insult 
them in every way they can, so as not actually to 
break the law." Sufficiently intelligible ! If the 
law but sanctioned an auto-da-fe. can we doubt that 
this gentleman would soon let us have one ? And 
if such persecutions abound despite the protection 
of Victoria, what might we expect were another 
Mary raised to the throne r ? 

Such, then, is the system which borrows the name 
of the Grod of love ! And of the manifold mysteries 
which enwrap his providence, perhaps the most inex- 
plicable is that he has so long endured a church 



ROME DESTROYS THE HEART. 169 



which has revelled for ages in the blood of his 
saints, and far outdone the cruelties of Attila and 
Nero. Who can wonder that the glorified martyrs 
seem restless and impatient beneath the altar, and 
cry. " How long. Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell 
on the earth?" How often amongst ourselves has 
Rome dried up like a scorching sirocco, the streams 
of social kindness, and fulfilling* to the letter the 
apocalyptic prediction, forbidden her people to "buy 
or sell" to our missionaries ? How often has she 
sought to freeze the springs of the Irish heart, and 
forbidden the people ' : to give the missionaries a drink 
of water," insomuch, that they have sometimes, in a 
manner truly characteristic, evaded the stern com- 
mand by giving them a drink of milk I Yet by 
some they are deemed savages, whilst scarce a whis- 
per of censure is breathed against that church which 
thus labors to instil into their souls its scorpion 
venom, and make hatred of Protestants the chief 
article of their creed ; — a church which, wherever 
she has the power, rends into shreds nature's ten- 
derest ties, and sets the parent against the child, 
and the child against the parent ; and which seems 
to have become more wicked with advancing years, 
till now in her growing decrepitude she is gnashing 
her broken fangs at the young buoyant Spirit of 
light and liberty that is shaking its wings over 
Europe, and till those who erst were her credulous 



170 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

apologists, would gladly join in the jubilant shout 
which shall ere long ring to heaven — " Babylon is 
fallen, is fallen !" 



CHAPTER TV 

ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 

Thus have we demonstrated the blighting influ- 
ence of Rome on the three chief parts of man's 
nature. But there are various qualities essential to 
human progress, which spring from these as branches 
from the stem, and on which the character of Popery 
is singularly displayed. As when the tree is light- 
ning-struck, the blasting influence is seen on every 
leaf and twig, suchjs the scathing effect of Popery, 
not on the chief parts only, but on the minutest 
ramifications of the character and conduct. We 
can only trouble the reader with a very few ex- 
amples. 

The Devices. — Mark how the whole tendency of 
Popery is to paralyze the energies and blight the 
better qualities of man. What so certain to beget 
mental inertness in all the affairs of life, as the 
dreadful device of keeping him in a state of mental 
torpor in regard to its grand concern, religion ? 
Will the intellect which is always thrown into a 
mesmeric sleep at the altar, not feel the deadening 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 171 

effect iii the world ? Can the mind which is pinion- 
ed one half its time use its wings so expertly the 
remainder : or a man who is a mere machine to-day, 
become by his simple volition a philosopher to-mor- 
row 1 Then the whole tendency of Popery is to 
make its victims social cripples, and their life a pro- 
longed childhood From their cradles to their 
graves they are dependent on their priest : he thinks 
for them, praj^s for them, shrives them, anoints 
them, manages all their eternal concerns, and inter- 
feres pretty freely with their temporal also. They 
must not even use their senses but as he directs ; 
for when he tells them bread is no longer bread, 
they must believe him. And thus their whole 
training makes them helpless creatures ; they ac- 
quire of necessity the habit of dependence ; and ac- 
customed to confide to other hands their eternal all, 
the greater interest, they come but too naturally to 
confide their temporal all, the less. How sadly ex- 
emplified in the case of our countrymen ! If they 
want their rivers deepened, their harbors improved, 
their very land drained, they look elsewhere for as- 
sistance. Hospitals are established — they look to 
parliament to support them ; trade is decaying — 
they look to parliament to relieve them ; the potato 
fails — they look to parliament to feed them ; they 
want a Galway Packet Station, and look first to 
England, then to America. Nay, they cannot even 
get up a rebellion without seeking foreign aid : in 
1798, Wolfe Tone presents himself before the 



172 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



French Directory; in 18 48 Smith O'Brien waits 
on Lamartine. And thus our poor country lies a 
paralytic on the world's highway, crying to all na- 
tions to come and help her along ! 

Look farther to the havoc which Rome works on 
one's spirit of independence. Such are the terrible 
conditions imposed by this giant enslaver, that it is 
scarcely possible to be at once a Papist and a man. 
First, there sits the priest on the throne of God. the 
keeper of that man's conscience, the jailor of his 
mind, and the factor of his eternal inheritance — do 
you expect such a man to stand erect before this 
dread deity ; to dispute the will, however capricious, 
or resist the commands however intolerable, of that 
ghostly father, whose smile is heaven, whose frown 
is hell? "I have power to strike you dead this 
minute." exclaims Maria Monk's confessor. Of 
course, with any but the most hopeless unbeliever, 
this must have ended the controversy. 

Then, reader, place yourself, where that poor Pa- 
pist must often kneel, at the confessor's feet. There, 
on pain of incurring mortal sin. you must open to 
him the very depths of your soul ; thoughts which 
you would rather die than to disclose to any other, 
must all be divulged to him. There is no escaping, 
for with the help of a thousand suggestive questions 
furnished by Dens and Bailly. he will, ere you rise, 
worm himself into your inmost heart, and sound the 
lowest depths of your bosom. And this scene is so 
often repeated, that in effect, whatever you are do- 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 



173 



ing. you feel as in the presence of this terrible be- 
ing : it is as though he were ever dogging your steps, 
penetrating your most retired haunts, and like some 
ghost entering your midnight chamber and peeping 
through the curtains of your couch. Could Satan 
have devised a more deadly engine by which to ob- 
literate within you every trace of manhood ? Is it 
possible to look in his face, who knows all your se- 
crets, and feel yourself a man ? If yet any shame 
has survived this prolonged course of degradation, 
must you not feel overwhelmed in presence of this 
personator of the great Searcher of hearts ? Now, 
surely one needs but to remember that this engine 
of moral slavery is worked every day in every parish 
of Ireland, in order to understand why the Irish 
Roman Catholic is so often a spiritless and crouch- 
ing serf. Can you wonder to hear of the Connaught 
peasant, who crawled out on the road as the priest 
rode by and kissed the footprints of his horse? or 
feel much surprise to hear of O'Connell kneeling 
down in the mud of Cork streets to receive the 
priest's benediction ? or the English Arundel and 
Surrey lately doing the same before the priests of 
Limerick '? No. let but this serpent coil itself round 
a man's heart, and English or Irish, he is a man no 
longer. Well, accustomed to crouch before one 
man, it becomes natural to bow down to all. The 
willow that one storm has effectually bent, can never 
afterwards stand erect against any ; and the man 
who humbles himself to his priest, comes almost in- 



174 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



stinctively to do the same to his landlord and his 
master : and hence the obsequious servility of the 
southern Roman Catholic, so singularly contrasting 
with the northern Protestant's sturdy independence. 

But there yet remains to be noticed another ele- 
ment of moral slavery more terrible still. One 
would have thought that with the afore-mentioned 
engines of subjugation, Rome might have sat down 
content ; but lest amongst her prostrate millions, 
there might yet be found one to raise a freeman's 
head, she has invented her doctrine of "intention," 
according to which the validity of every ordinance 
depends on the intentions of the priest who performs 
it. If from ignorance, neglect, or sheer malevolence, 
he does not in the ordinance " intend to do what the 
church does," the ordinance is ipso facto utterly null 
and void, and the victim of his carelessness or wick- 
edness remains still in his sins. 

We ask, Can Brahminisin or Buddhism present 
anything like this ? On the priest's intention, for 
instance, it depends whether the flour is a wafer or 
a god : or whether, in partaking of the eucharist, 
the worshipper is swallowing the Saviour, and thus 
securing salvation, or adoring a bit of paste, and 
thus committing mortal sin ! So is it with all the 
other ordinances — on the priest's intention every- 
thing depends, and the worshipper knows this. How 
absolutely overwhelming is such a man's power, 
whose mere intention can send a whole parish to 
purgatory or farther ! Why, the Almighty himself 



ROME DEBASES TlfE WHOLE NATURE. 175 



must be utterly lost sight of in presence of this 
impostor-deity : — in his hands, and at his mercy, 
must the genuine Roman Catholic believe himself 
to be for time and eternity. Would you mock such 
a man by talking to him of freedom, who lies at his 
priest's feet in the most abject prostration, who has 
nothing that he dare call his own, and who believes that 
heaven is his if lie can only please and bribe his 
master, while hell waits on this spiritual tyrant's 
word, and follows his ghostly displeasure ? Oh ! 
the most galling yoke that ever crushed the African 
w,as liberty sweet to this. His chains at most can 
but pierce into his bones, but here are chains which 
eat through a man's soul ; and the deepest atrocity 
lies in this, that it is his very feelings of devotion, 
his very concern about his soul, all that is to be 
admired in him as a poor sinner seeking salvation 
— it is these which are taken advantage of, the bet- 
ter to enslave and rain him. Surely it is not diffi- 
cult to guess the author of such a contrivance; we 
trust there is but one being in the universe capable 
of the reach of wickedness it betrays. Say. is it 
strange that our poor countryman, on whose credu- 
lous ignorance such a doctrine is from infancy so 
industriously palmed, should submit to any abuse 
which his priest may choose to heap on him ; to be 
flogged and kicked, nay. perhaps to see the last 
indignity offered to his wife or daughter without 
daring to complain? -'What, sir," exclaimed an 
Irish laborer, when beaten by his priest till his face 



176 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

was covered with blood, and asked how he could 
endure it — " What. sir. strike a priest ! if I would 
touch a priest, my arm would wither from the 
shoulder blade." 

Well, surely this at least completes the list of 
Rome's enslaving schemes — surely this must be the 
last fold of that fearful net. in whose meshes her 
victims seem so hopelessly entangled — and surely 
the skill of Popery's subtle author has nothing 
worse to add. Alas ! our painful task is not yet 
done — those who have read Michelet's k; Priests, 
Women, and Families," will understand that there 
remains to be unfolded one other device, the most 
deeply diabolical of all. We have already hinted 
at the amazing wisdom and goodness displayed in 
making man " male and female ;" to that single 
arrangement, with all the relations it creates, is our 
race indebted for not only its existence, but a very 
large amount of its virtue and happiness. The 
felicity of paradise was imperfect without it ; and 
the relation which was thus found necessary to 
complete the joys of innocence, contributes more 
than any other, when its laws are duly observed, to 
mitigate the woes of fallen humanity. The church, 
therefore, which would frustrate the designs of this 
great arrangement, instead of laboring to secure its 
fullest, healthiest results, must be an unutterable 
curse to mankind. Well, we have seen the fearful 
effects even of a partial interference with it in the 
celibacy of the Romish priesthood — the terrible 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 177 

revenge taken by nature, even for tnis compara- 
tively slight violation of her laws. Then what must 
be the effect, if. as we mow proceed to show. Rome 
has ever labored not only to rob this divine arrange- 
ment of its benign influences, but to invest ifc instead 
with malign ones , and not only to frustrate woman's 
holy destinies as the "guardian angel" of each gen- 
eration, but to attempt to transform her into its 
"destroying angel?" 

Be it remembered that God has given woman an 
influence almost incalculable, and a sphere to exert 
it in all but boundless. By endowing her with the 
softer sensibilities of our nature, he has made her, 
in her own sphere, omnipotent for good. Her weak- 
ness thus becomes her strength, and her reign one 
of love : and she moves through society a centre and 
a source of influences inestimably valuable in a world 
like ours — softening its asperities, refining its gross- 
ness, sweetening its bitterness, and alleviating its 
woes. And these she exerts everywhere — as a child 
in the nursery, as a sister in the family, as a daugh- 
ter by her parents' side, in the hallowed affections 
of a wife, and in the exquisite tenderness of a 
mother. Oh, it were demon wickedness to mar or 
blight such a merciful arrangement as this ! No 
wonder the arch-fiend has always aimed to destroy 
woman first as the surest means of destroying man ; 
you see it in the first temptation, in the history of 
the flood, and all over the world. Wherever Satan 
reigns, there woman is debased ; she is the Mahoni- 

12 



£78 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



medan's toy, the Hindoo's captive, the African's 
beast of burden, and the prostrate slave of all. And 
if you would set 1 the Satanic skill and iniquity of 
this, you need only to contrast the Christian mother 
with the Heathen, or the Monicas with the Agrip- 
pinas of mankind : the one giving the world an 
Augustine, the other a Nero, and each the source 
of a stream of moral influence, of which the one 
proved a river of life, and the other a desolating 
flood. 

In Popery he has pursued the same policy, but 
with a profounder subtilty. First, by his various 
contrivances for discountenancing marriage — such 
as its entire system of nunneries — he seeks to frus- 
trate the designs of woman's existence : — to rob 
mankind of her precious influences, and reduce her- 
self to a social nonentity, buried alive in gloomy 
cloisters, with nothing but the ghost and shadow of 
womanhood remaining. And thither that hapless 
creature is consigned ; to wage, as best she can, per- 
petual war with all the feelings and adaptations of 
her own nature : — by this dark contrivance trans- 
formed at once from being the fairest creation of 
God to be a pitiable anomaly on earth, unable to be 
an angel, yet not permitted to be a woman, and thus 
doomed to virtual suicide. 

But since celibacy is too great an outrage on our 
nature for even Rome to commit with much success, 
her next and grand aim is to take possession of the 
soul, which she cannot thus blight ; and to trans- 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 179 



form those females whom she "cannot thus banish 
from society, into tools by which the better to effect 
her deep designs against it. 

As the convent is her great instrument in the one 
case, so is the confessional in the other ; — and will 
the reader just attend while we briefly unfold a con- 
trivance as diabolical as ever was hatched in hell, for 
destroying woman's purity and degrading her soul. 
The process begins in very infancy ; at the tender 
age of five, the joyous-hearted little girl is dragged 
to the confessional, like a lamb to the slaughter, to 
have sins suggested of which she never thought be- 
fore, and questions put from which innocence recoils ; 
and that mere infant must there be cross-questioned 
as to whether she has yet felt any carnal desires ! !* 
As years advance, these questions increase in vile- 
ness, and that innocent young creature, as often as 
she approaches her confessor, must be dragged 
through an examination so disgusting that we can- 
not pollute our pages even with a sample : it is en- 
ough to refer our readers to those depositories of ob- 
scenity. Dens, Delahogue, and Bailly, in which there 
are whole chapters on " immodest thoughts, words, 
touches, looks, and acts," and all these must be 
turned into questions, and by the female distinctly 
answered ! There is no escape even for the blush- 
ing virgin, for a " general confession may not only 
be unprofitable, but even dangerous and improper,"! 

* Dens, vol. vi. p. 204. 

f Chit's " Familiar Instructions," p. 123. 



180 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



and therefore i- it is necessary to explain every- 
thing /"* Neither is matrimony the least protection ; 
for these obscene inquisitors obtrude themselves into 
the marriage chamber, demand the secrets of the 
nuptial couch, and make the minutest inquiries 
"circa actum conjugalem !" Nay, this infamous 
system spares not the disconsolate ividoiv in her 
weeds ; for it is a mortal sin even " to recollect the 
joys once sanctioned b}' her marriage vow, and must 
therefore be specially confessed. "f Only imagine 
every Roman Catholic maid and matron in Ireland, 
dragged annually at the least through this sink of 
abomination, at the mere pleasure and after the 
prurient fancy of some coarse bachelor priest, and all 
this enacted in the name and beneath the mask of 
religion ! Is it really possible that Roman Catholics 
can tamely submit to this? Oh. does it not imply 
a moral degradation absolutely pitiable ? How can 
a father permit his lovely daughter to be exposed to 
such on ordeal ? — how can a husband endure to have 
his virtuous wife subjected to such debasement ? — 
above all, how can a bashful female, she who would 
prefer death to a tithe of this dishonor from any 
other hands, submit to be robbed by an unmarried 
priest of all that gives dignity to woman, and leave 
the confessional a degraded thing ? We speak not 
now of its debauching influence, we stop not to ask 
by what miracle of preserving grace woman can evei 

* Christian's Guide to Heaven, pp. 80. 81. 
f " Progress of the Confessional." p. 20. 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 181 



leave such a scene a virtuous being ; but we ask, 
even were all that has ever been said and admit ted 
of the confessional's debaucheries a monstrous libel, 
even were woman always to escape destruction, how 
can she possibly escape degradation ? If even a man 
of any feeling cannot look his confessor in the face, 
how can a woman attempt to do so? It is simply 
impossible. Unless such scenes have obliterated her 
feelings altogether, she must even in her own eyes be 
a debased and humbled creature; and what a dread- 
ful alternative this, alike fatal to her dignity, either 
to have her modesty extinguished or continually 
outraged ! 

Now, mark the tremendous consequences. She 
has humbled herself to her priest, and he has by 
this means acquired over her a boundless authority. 
She dare not resist it, — she never does ; for one 
glance from that basilisk eye, darted into her soul, 
is at any time enough to suppress the first risings 
of revolt. Well, having thus secured her, the priest 
has secured all the influence which God has given 
her. All is made over to him, to be employed as 
he directs, and from that hour she is transformed 
into an evil genius. Descending from her lofty sta- 
tion as the world's benefactress, she becomes the 
mere menial and decoy of "the 'church." The 
wholesome streams of influence which flowed from 
her, are now drugged and poisoned ; her children, 
her husband, her whole household, she influences as 
the priest directs her, and thus, by one fell stroke, 



182 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

the best safeguard of society is laid in ruins. 
Satan lias again succeeded in his first great tempta- 
tion ; and the plea of fallen Adam comes to mind — 
" It was the woman whom thou gavest to be with 



me 



\- 



The Fruits. — It is impossible here to trace out 
all the effects of this profound conspiracy against 
the best interests of mankind — we can only trouble 
the reader With an example or two. Indeed in 
this, as in our other chapters, our aim is rather to 
give him the clue to each chamber of this dark 
labyrinth, and leave him to follow its windings him- 
self. 

It is wonderful how similar are the fruits of all 
false systems ; — how like, for example, are the 
habits of the Pagan and the Papist, and the condi- 
tion of the Irish hut and the Indian wigwam. One 
of the most striking and usual effects of true religion 
is cleanliness, and of false religion is filth. If clean- 
liness is not " next to godliness," it is at least closely 
connected with it ; for how seldom have you seen a 
truly pious household who. in their whitewashed 
walls and well-swept floor, did not bear pleasing 
testimony to the gospel's elevating power ! Now, 
in Protestant England, the humblest cottager wages 
an eternal war with dirt. Enter if you will his lit- 
tle kitchen, and every vessel is shining on the shelf: 
and could you only pass from thence in an instant 
into many an Irish Roman Catholic's parlor, you 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 183 



would be at no loss to decide in which of the two 
you would prefer to dine ! In fact, Popery is em- 
phatically a filthy religion. The cabins of Irish 
Roman Catholics are embowered in dirt, — you can't 
pass near them without the risk of defilement : and 
as you see their doors fronted by dung-heaps, on 
which filthy children are wallowing, while their 
parents are lazily lounging about, you can't help re- 
garding the revolting spectacle as a visible protest 
to heaven against a system which could so brutalize 
immortal beings. Yes : and you who charge this 
on our countrymen as such, have you ever been in 
other Popish lands ? M. Houssel, speaking of his 
tour in Switzerland, says — " I met a carrier who 
enumerated all the clean cantons and all the dirty 
ones ; the man was unaware that the one list con- 
tained all the Protestant cantons, and the other all 
the Popish ones."* And in the " holy city." where 
is so instructively exemplified every feature of the 
" mother of abominations," we have this one also ; 
for Seymour declares, that ' : every species of filth, 
and every kind of odor, greet the visitant on his 
entrance among the streets of this city of the 
church." - For filth, for odors, for indecency, for 
all that is offensive to the eye, to the feelings, to 
the habits of a cleanly and orderly people, the city 
of Rome surpasses almost any other city in tne 
world."! 

* New York Evangelist. 1849 

f Seymour's Pilgrimage to Rome. p. 139. 



184 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

Another striking point of contrast between Chris- 
tian and Pagan lands, is the measure of respect 
which each shows to its dead. In the latter, for 
instance, yon will see dead bodies lying unburied, 
and half-devoured by birds and beasts of prey: Now, 
every traveller has observed that a contrast precise- 
ly similar exists between Protestant and Popish 
countries. In our western graveyards, you will not 
only see bones strewn about on the surface of the 
ground, but half-decayed ends of coffins sticking out 
of the graves : and only just contrast these horrid 
golgothas with the neat-planted country churchyards 
of Protestant Ulster and Britain ! Yet a still more 
revolting scene is found in the Irish ivale — that 
remnant of the funeral games of Panganism. in 
which not only smoking and drinking, but all kinds 
of amusement are indulged in ; and these too often 
winding up with the characteristic finale of a row, 
in which the belligerents have sometimes been Known 
to struggle and tumble over the corpse itself ! Yet 
the priest, by reason of his mighty influence, could 
easily put down such practices, and vastly improve 
the people's general habits ; but when has he ever 
made the attempt ? And if you ask the reason, his 
answer is, that it would be useless. So, then, he 
who is omnipotent when a Bible is to be burned, or 
a Scripture-reader mobbed, is, by his own confession, 
only impotent for good ! 

Instance, again, the general degradation which 
prevails in all " dark places of the earth," with its 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 185 



attributes of sloth and improvidence Give an Irish 
peasant a patch of bog on which to build a hut and 
plant potatoes, and he seems to have reached the 
climax of his wishes. His brightest visions seem 
realized in his cabin of mud.— his highest aspirations 
in his rood of potatoes —and the motto of his life 
seems henceforth to be. " Why should we think of 
to-morrow?" There he vegetates; but not alone. 
Whatever other precept he sets at naught, no man 
seems more reverentially to regard the first great 
command - Be fruitful and multiply." Perhaps by 
eighteen he is married : and we have known the 
" h appy pair" to be obliged to borrow the coat and 
gown in which the nuptials were performed. Dur- 
ing the late famine, a man who received daily relief 
in Ballina. petitioned for a double supply, on the 
ground that the committee were so kind and his 
prospects had thus grown so bright, that he had 
married a wife, and the extra relief he sought was 
for her! Everything else is in keeping: time, 
the most precious commodity to an Englishman, is' 
by the Irish Roman Catholic, squandered with 
lavish hand ; while to diligence he is so little accus- 
tomed, that when working in the fields he must stop 
to gaze at each passer-by ; and, in Ids case, the plea 
of the unjust steward is reversed, for we have known 
him to leave his •• digging" in the field to « beg" a 
half-penny from a passing stranger. Indeed, beg- 
ging seems the national trade, and never was a race 
more fertile in expedients to awaken liberality and 



186 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

impose on simplicity. They have been known to 
make ulcere in their legs with bluestone : and you 
would tlrink those naked children who pursue the 
coaches along the road had the most unquench- 
able thirst for learning, for ;; the half-penny" is al- 
ways "to buy a book." Yes, though the sixth of 
Ireland's population is in the poor-house, this 
has scarce perceptibly diminished the number of 
strolling beggars. By the highways, you see them 
posted like sentinels : as you pass through a. town, 
they follow you, invoking the saints' blessings on 
your departed parents' souls. If you enter a shop, 
they instantly surround the door ; and, even late at 
night, you'll hear their monotonous call rising in the 
stillness of the half-deserted streets. 

Do you say it is because they are Irish ? We deny 
the ungenerous charge. The Irish Protestant we 
have known to be half starved in his dwelling before 
he would divulge his wants. No ; it is the neces- 
sary fruit of a system which, by degrading the whole 
soul, begets of necessity the spirit of a beggar ; 
which, by laying such stress on the merit of alms- 
giving, holds out a premium to begging : and which, 
by its various mendicant " orders," invests the trade 
with not only the garb of respectability, but the 
sanction of religion. Hence, what Popish country 
does not swarm with' beggars? While you travel 
for weeks through Protestant America without meet- 
ing one, save from Ireland, every traveller tells you 
how the Popish lands of Europe are filled with them. 



ROME DEBASES THE WHOLE NATURE. 187 

Mr. Wylie had do soooer crossed the torrent which 
divides the Protestant republic of Geneva from the 
Popish kingdom of Sardinia, than amongst other 
characteristic marks of desolation, he met troops of 
beggars, whose " numbers seemed endless. Every 
other mile, in the day's ride of 50 miles, brought 
new groups, as filthy, squalid, and diseased, as those 
which had been passed."* Or, perhaps you may 
say, 'tis necessity which makes the Irish beg ? Alas ! 
the shortest way to get rid of the importunity of 
some of them, is, as we have known, to offer them 
employment. And is it not common for Irish la- 
borers to beg their way, not only going to the Eng- 
lish harvests, but returning from them, no matter 
what earnings they may be carrying back ; nay, to 
resort to various schemes to avoid paying their fare 
in the steamers which bring them home ? We have 
seen the mate sometimes confining them in the hold, 
sometimes kicking them round the deck, sometimes 
stripping them almost naked, before they would con- 
fess they had a farthing about them ; and in one 
case, the honest sailor, in his indignation, flung the 
poor wretch's waistcoat overboard, whereupon he 
raised a howl of lamentation, exclaiming that he was 
a ruined man : and then the truth came out that he 
had several pounds sewed up in its folds ! 

And these are thy trophies, Rome — the proofs 
of thy divinity — the fruits of thy celestial sway ! 
Oh, how oft, when witnessing such scenes as these, 

* Wylie on the Papacy, p. 482. 



188 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

has our very soul burned, not only with shame for 
our country, but indignation at the system which has 
made her the world's very scorn ! And we have felt 
amazed at the effrontery of those priests who. daily 
walking amid the ruins they have wrought, can not 
only lift their heads like other men, but rage and 
bluster the while against England as the cause of all 
this mischief, and speak of themselves and their sys- 
tem as the peerless embodiment of transcendent and 
persecuted worth, and the only hope of Ireland's 
elevation ! ! Surely in the light of these astounding 
facts must the mist which has so long enveloped 
Ireland be dissipated, and the contempt of which 
she has been the innocent object, be henceforth lev- 
elled against her cruel enslaver. For, if beneath 
even bodily slavery the finest race on earth degen- 
erate and become in time mere wrecks of humanity, 
! what must be the effects of such a moral thral- 
dom lying with its whole weight on our countrymen 
for ages ! — a thraldom which, masked in the guise of 
Christianity, kills the energies that divine religion 
quickens — brutalizes the feelings which it refines — 
debases the nature which it exalts — in a word, as 
thoroughly curses as ever it blessed — and makes the 
whole man, to which the gospel would have given 
the swelling bloom of health, like some spent and 
palsied frame, the shattered remnant of what it was ! 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 189 



CHAPTER V. 

ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 

Such, then, is Rome. Like some parasitical plant 
which embraces and kills the noblest tree, it twines 
itself with deadly grasp around man's whole nature ; 
or like some poison poured into the veins, it sends 
its moral death-drugs through his whole soul. And 
now, having seen how it must destroy a people, it 
only remains to show how, in Ireland's case, it has 
done so. And for simplicity's sake, we shall take 
up the leading topics of the two first Parts of this 
work which have not already been disposed of ; and 
briefly applying our lohole line of argument to Ire- 
land's financial, physical, social, and political state, 
proceed to the completion of our demonstration. 

The Financial. — Rome has impoverished Ire- 
land indirectly by its influences^ and directly by its 
imposts. 

If she keeps her people sitting in darkness while 
others are enlightened, steeped in vice while others 
are virtuous, and their whole souls like a bow un- 
strung while others are nerved with energy and life 
— then, unless God were to rain gold from heaven, 
is their poverty as inevitable as eternal laws can 
make it. Why, Rome's very holidays tend in this 
direction : her calendar contains a fast or feast for 



190 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



every day in the year, and demands the observance 
of seventy of these, exclusive of Sabbaths : so that 
nearly a fifth part of every " good Catholic's" life- 
time is consumed in the worship of dead men and 
women ! And what must bo the effect of such con- 
tinual interruptions to business on a nation's wealth, 
and on all those habits which are the springs of 
wealth % or how can the man avIio idles on Monday 
and Wednesday, help feeling the unsettling effect 
throughout the rest of the week ? 

If, then. Rome's very devotions tend to poverty, 
what must be the influence of her vices and crimes ? 
We have proved that it is she that has filled the 
land with violence ; at her door then lie, of course, 
the disastrous consequences. It is she that is mainly 
chargeable, not only with our enormous military, 
constabulary, and jail expenditure — not only with 
our ruinous outlay on law and lawyers — not only 
with our crushing poor-rates — not only with the ac- 
tual expense of our immoral habits themselves, but 
with all the calamitous effects of these, direct and 
reflex, on the trade and jwogress of the country. 
And who can pretend to estimate these ? Think of 
the loss sustained by one disturbed district, or the 
injury inflicted by a single gang of ruffians, before 
they come within the, grasp of the law at all : and 
yet to all this positive loss you must add the still 
larger negative item. You must enter our crimi- 
nals' cells, and estimate, not only the injury they in- 
flict on society, but the good they would have con- 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 191 

ferred on it, had they only been virtuous — you must 
wend your way to our seaports, and reckon the loss 
sustained by the flight of our best people, who, in a 
better state of society, would have prospered at 
home — you mast then pass through every town and 
parish, and calculate the loss incurred by the paral- 
ysis of our trade, and the wretchedness of our agri- 
culture ; — and, finally, you must visit every stream 
and harbor, and reflect how many capitalists our so- 
cial disorder has driven from our shores, and how 
many more it has hindered from approaching them ; 
all this, and more, you will be obliged to estimate, 
before you can form a correct idea of the financial 
curse of Popery. 

We have already seen a little of Rome's direct 
imposts, and in truth but a little ; for the amount it 
wrings from the starving Irish is scarcely credible. 
Poverty itself brings no exemption ; — we once knew 
a common c/w^'-woraan to fast from her dinner for 
days in order to procure her " voluntary offering;" 
and in various towns 3011 see magnificent chapels 
now rising to the skies, but while pleased with their 
beauty, you perhaps little dream, that like the Egyp- 
tian pyramids they have been reared by the sweat 
of bond slaves, and owe their existence mainly to the 
hard earnings of the poor. 

We have shown how. during the horrors of the 
famine. Rome fed on the alms of charity, and u glean- 
ed in the rear of starvation/' It was during these 
horrors that the Pope fled to Graeta ; and at the very 



192 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



time when the priests were appealing to Protestant 
liberality on behalf of their starving millions, they 
were sending thousands of pounds to his "holiness:'* 
who, in return, sent them his blessing, and a. few 
hundreds of their own money to distribute amongst 
the dying ! No wonder, truly, that our poor emi- 
grants breathe freely when they reach the shores of 
the west, and express themselves as thankful for 
having escaped the exactions of their priests as those 
of their landlords. No wonder that, with all their 
efforts to •■bring their friends out.'" they are never 
known to bring out their priests ! and where an oc- 
casional priest does follow and join them, no wonder 
that the first lesson they take pains to teach him is 
that he is no longer in Ireland. " Sir," exclaimed an 
Irish laborer on the banks of the Delaware, to a 
priest who had insolently refused to take five dollars 
for some rite — " Sir, do you think it is in Ireland 
you have me ?" 

Nay, not only has Rome extracted the morsel 
from the mouth of hunger, but outraged those feel- 
ings of our nature which even barbarians are accus- 
tomed to respect. A young pair become attached, 
and the priest often hastens the marriage for sake of 
the fee, although he knows they must borrow the 
money wherewith to pay him. Nay. one of our mis- 
sionaries has detailed a case in which not only was 
the match made by the priest, but the bride never 
saw the bridegroom till she met him on the way to be 
married ! and he adds, that when they met, the poor 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 193 



bride thus addressed her future spouse — " May I 
make bold to ask what is jour name?" But Koine's 
golden harvest is by the deathbed and the grave ; 
and in those solemn scenes where the most ruo-jred 

Do 

nature has melted, — where the hand of extortion has 
let go its grasp, and unkindness itself has been known 
to weep, she alone has remained unmoved : and by 
working on a dying father's terrors, so often robbed 
his children, even while weeping over him, that par- 
liament itself has been obliged to protect them by 
its Charitable Bequests' Bill. Oh, think of a church 
of God thus feeding like a vulture on the dead as 
well as the living ! Surely the bold highwajaaan is 
honorable in comparison to the men who creep into 
the death-chamber, and, alike unmoved by the groans 
of the dying and the anguish of the living, do their 
pilfering work beneath the cloak of religion and the 
forms of law ! 

Nor must we blame the Irish priest alone ; Rome 
is everywhere the same spiritual maelstrom sucking 
down the wealth of nations ; and the successor of the 
fisherman who had neither t; silver nor gold," has in 
all as;es been the world's great plunderer. While 
the whole state revenue of Rome is but 8,000.000 or 
9,000 000 of dollars, its church property is worth 
400.000 000 of francs, and yields a revenue of 20,- 
000,000 a-year.* Ay, and poor miserable Spain, 
unable to pay any one else, is this moment paying 
the priests 50,000,000 of dollars per annum. Now, 

* Gavazzi, 13th Oration. 

1 o 
1«J 



194 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

if bankrupt nations are thus mulcted even in these 
days of Rome's impotence, imagine, if you can the 
state of things when Europe lay in chains at her feet. 
At one time a large portion of its entire property 
had been drawn into her capacious jaws ; and it was 
to prevent her from swallowing England up that the 
law of mortmain was enacted; while those who see 
the ruins of abbeys, cathedrals, and monasteries which 
are thickly strewn over Europe, and reflect on their 
enormous revenues, may form some idea of the pe- 
cuniary millstone which once hung on the necks of 
nations. 

The Physical. — We have only space for a word 
or two on the soil and climate of Popish lands. 
" What !" you exclaim. i; does Rome even mar the 
face of nature ?" Yes. dear reader, the ground was 
cursed for man'sj?^ apostasy, and why wonder that 
it should feel the effects of his last and greatest ? 
And as if to show more clearly her scathing influ- 
ence, it is usually the finest countries which God has 
permitted Rome to occupy, while the poorest have 
as commonly been assigned to Protestantism. To 
the one he has given green Ireland, fair France, and 
sunny Italy : and to the other barren Scotland and 
sandy Holland ; yet the latter are blessed, and the 
former so thoroughly blasted, that of Italy, for in- 
stance, a late traveller could not help exclaiming,— 
" The devil has again entered Paradise :" and this, 
too, while • Protestantism found Britain a paltry 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. /95 



island, and America a vast wilderness, and lias made 
them the pride of the world ! It is the same in 
Ireland : Rome has possession of not only its best 
provinces, but its most romantic spots. To her be- 
long Wicklow, Kiliarney, Rosstrevor, and Lough 
Grill : and who that has visited these lovely scenes 
can forget the nuisances which are found in their 
midst — who can forget the filthy beggars, for instance, 
who in Kiliarney torment the tourist at every step 
like summer flies in some sweet bower ; or help 
adopting the very words of Baptist Noel, when gaz- 
ing on a similar scene at Killaloe : — 

" But in Ireland there is an omnipresent mischief, 
and when you would let your thoughts repose among 
the sweet influences of nature, then Popery looks in 
on you like a spectre ; or, if it be half concealed 
like a snake among the flowers, ' there comes a token 
like a scorpion's sting,' warning you of its hateful 
presence. I felt it at Kiliarney, I felt it at Ross- 
trevor, and here it is again." Yes, and not only can 
you trace the trail of this serpent along the ground, 
but you sniff its odors in the breeze of heaven. 
Cultivation affects climate, and cleanliness promotes 
health ; and if to Popery we are indebted for un- 
drained bogs and filthy cabins, then it is it we must 
mainly thank for that damp which is the result of the 
one, and those diseases which are caused by both. If, 
then, Popery injures even our salubrious clime, what 
report can we expect from^ other lands ? Instance 
Italy, " the seat of the beast :" and in the days of the 



196 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



Cresars, towns and villages stood where the Pontine 
Marshes now send up their poisonous vapors, and 
that malaria was but slightly felt which is now the 
scourge of the land. 

But it is in the rare you see the chief physical 
effects of Popery. Eden suffered much by the fall, 
but Adam suffered more : and we appeal to the 
reader if we have not proved that those blemishes 
which attach to our countrymen, are chiefly charge- 
able on Popery. The very body feels its curse — 
you see the ; ' mark of the beast" not only on the 
"forehead" but the frame: and no marvel, when 
you think of the influence of crime and misery on 
bodily strength and stature. The contrast is re- 
markable between the Roman Catholic peasant of 
Kerry, and the Protestant peasant of Antrim : and 
what is yet more striking, between the Roman 
Catholic and the Protestant of Kerry itself. The 
same contrast is seen between the Frenchman and 
the Englishman ; and what demonstrates that this 
is owing not to anything natural to these races, but 
to some influence exerted upon them, is the fact that 
the stature of the French has diminished, while that 
of the English has increased. For, according to 
Raudot in his "Decline of France." the height re- 
quired for a French infantry soldier in 1789, was 
but 5 feet 1 inch, and in 1832. a time of peace, it 
had to be reduced to 4 feet 9 inches and 10 lines; 
while in England, on the contrary, the minimum 
height 20 years ago was 5 feet 4 inches, and now it 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 197 

has risen to 5 feet 7. If such are the effects of 
Popery on the body, what must be its influence on 
the, soul ? We appeal for answer to all Popish lands. 
What a contrast is the Brazilian to the American 
and the Austrian to the Englishman ! — or where was 
ever a finer race than the ancient Andalusian? and 
what have the priests now made them ? — ' : they took 
in hand a nation of heroes, and they have produced 
a generation of hens."* In a word, no matter how 
different the race, Protestants have everywhere the 
same great moral features of resemblance ; and so 
have Roman Catholics. And what singularly proves 
the degrading power of Rome on the Irishman in 
particular, is that it affects the very bravery which is 
his national quality. How can a moral slave be a 
hero? And so marshal him under priests as lead- 
ers, with crucifixes as ensigns, and you find him fly- 
in 2; before Cromwell, before William, before the sol- 
diers of 1793; but place him in the ranks of the 
British army, where his priest can no longer trample 
on him, and though he remains a Papist, and is there- 
fore the most troublesome soldier in his regiment, 
his natural spirit of bravery comes again, for it was 
not dead but sleeping, drugged by the opiate of 
Popery — and so he has contributed his full share of 
those laurels which England wears on her brow ! 

And thus we demonstrate that if the Irishman is 

worse than other men. it is Rome which has made 

him so ; and, oh ! it is melancholy to see this poor 

* Bishop Mechior Cano — quoted by Gavazzi. 8th Oration. 



,, -J 



198 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

victim of her guilt wandering the world, like some 
outcast from society, with that reputation blasted 
which is more precious than life. True religion 
gives a character, and in these days character is 
everythiug : but. alas our poor countryman ! his 
very name is enough to close against him the ave- 
nues to success. How often do you read in adver- 
tisements for clerks and servants, the humiliating 
not a bene — " No Irishman need apply !" How often 
when in search of employment in English and Scotch 
towns, is the door rudely shut in his face the mo- 
ment his brogue is heard ! And how often have we 
known him on that account to deny his country and 
try to disguise his fatal shibboleth ! Yes, and be- 
cause the Ulster Protestant has a character, and the 
Minister Roman Catholic has none, how often does 
the latter in other lands attempt in his distress to 
pass himself off as a native of Ulster ! What a fear- 
ful odds is against him here, when at the least he 
requires years of good conduct to make the charac- 
ter with which a Scotchman starts the first hour ! 
And what a pitiable condition is this to be reduced 
to : if he remains at home to be in danger of starv- 
ing, — if he leaves it in quest of an honest livelihood, 
to be still exposed to starvation, — and however inno- 
cent he may be, to find himself everywhere a shunned 
and suspected man ! 

The Social. — On this section we need scarcely 
dwell. If, as we have shown, Rome violates those 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 199 

eternal principles on which the existence of society 
depends ; surely social disorder at least must be the 
result. It follows inevitably from our whole argu- 
ment, that the direct tendency of Popery is to lay in 
the dust the entire social fabric. And it is truly 
wonderful how distinctly its effects are seen in the 
general condition of its victims. It has smitten the 
man, and you see the results on all that is his — in 
his filthy dwelling and ill-trained family, his weed- 
grown fields and broken fences. The master mind 
of the household is injured, and you see the effect on 
everything around : the mainspring of the watch is 
out of order, and it tells on the motion of every 
wheel. How truly exemplified have we already 
found this to be in our countryman's Habits ; it 
only now remains to trace it in his Pursuits. 

Remember, then, dear reader, how Christianity 
quickens, and Popery kills, the energies of man ; 
how the one is like the sun in spring, waking all na- 
ture to life, and the other like the frost in winter 

i 

overspreading it with the dreariness of death ; and 
you have the reason, which some cannot, and others 
will not see, why there is as great a contrast be- 
tween Protestant and Popish communities, as be- 
tween the flowing tide and the stagnant pool. How 
mournfully illustrated in Ireland's case ! How much 
has been done by public and private philanthropy to 
infuse a little life into her sluggish veins ! yet, like 
some exhausted patient, she continues to sink in 
spite of every restorative : each proves, at the best 



200 THE GHAX23 L'AUSE 

but a temporary stimulant /whose effects disappear 
as soon as it is withdrawn : and when there does 
seem a slight amendment, you are afraid to trust it, 
and can never tell whether it may be only like the 
occasional flicker of a dying lamp. The priest sits 
as a nightmare on the social energies, and presides 
the evil genius of the stagnation he creates. And 
this is so manifest, that could Ireland and Scotland 
exchange populations, the one would become a gar- 
den, and the other return to the wilderness state ; 
and could each have its ancient inhabitants restored, 
how soon would it resume its ancient character ! Is 
it not the same in all Popish lands ? What a social 
contrast they present to Protestant ones, in spite of 
their superior natural advantages — instance the two 
great European peninsulas. Spain and Italy ! What 
prodigious commercial facilities are theirs ! Yet 
how long, think you, would their inhabitants have 
dwelt in the woods of America, or on the swamps of 
Holland, before they would have made them the 
homes of commerce and wealth 1 In truth, wherever 
Popery flourishes, nothing is in vigor but Popery. 
Had it still reigned over Europe, where would now 
have been its steamers, its railroads, its telegraphs, 
its forests of shipping, or its ten thousand inventions, 
which are the wonder of the world ? Nay, with all 
the surrounding stimulus of that Protestantism 
which has created these, how much of them have 
Popish nations yet % Look at their miserable towns, 
with grass on the streets, and the people lounging 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 201 



about as though motion were a burden ; or their 
best seaports, with a few paltry craft, and their finest 
harbors, almost like that of Tyre, a " place for fish- 
ermen to spread their nets ;" — everything s/i// as 
though they were asleep, or like some blighted for- 
est which hears not the voice of spring ; — and all be- 
cause they are, in reality, lying benumbed and 
stunned beneath the stroke of this moral torpedo ! 

Moreover we impeach Popery as the grand indirect 
hindrance of our social progress : as the parent, for 
instance, of that feudalism whose remains still so 
much impede it, That cnrse cannot exist under a 
pure Christianity: its spirit cannot but exist under 
Paganism and Popery. And so we find that, if 
brought forth by the former, it was. at least, brought 
up by the latter : nourished most in Rome's palm- 
iest days ; received its deadly wound at the Refor- 
mation : and in every country has just decreased as 
pure Protestantism has increased. And it must be 
so. Popery being the intensest form of spiritual 
despotism, not only has the strongest affinity for 
civil and social despotism, but creates that social 
condition from which they necessarily spring. We 
have seen that the man who is accustomed to crouch 
before his spiritual superior, soon comes to crouch 
before his social superior. Slavery becomes his 
state : and once divide society into haughty priests 
and prostrate people, and it will, of consecpience, 
divide itself into barons and serfs, masters and 
slaves, and produce, through all its ramifications, 



202 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

those various forms of petty tyranny beneath which 
Ireland, and all other Popish countries, groan. In- 
stance our chief social grievance, landlord tyranny : 
and is it not. iu all our provinces, mitigated in pro- 
portion to their Protestantism, from Connaught to 
Ulster? Just because Protestantism, by begetting 
all those qualities which improve the man, renders 
any extensive oppression impossible : for. if it does 
not so improve the landlord's own heart that he will 
not oppress, it so elevates the tone of society that he 
dare not. And this healthy tone is, after all, not 
only the best preventive of abuses, but. in the long 
run, the only effectual one ; for not only do all use- 
ful laws' spring from it, but without it they are com- 
paratively worthless. Now, we have demonstrated 
that Popery either destroys or prevents the exist- 
ence of such a tone : and so it follows, that the 
landlord tyranny against which our priests exclaim, 
would, at the least, be greatly mitigated but for 
themselves. What landlord would dare attempt in 
Kent or the Lothians the same acts of cruelty which 
are committed with impunity in Galway 1 And the 
Tenant-Right leaders themselves admit that their 
chief hindrance is the want of that lofty, virtuous 
public feeling, which is the best means of overawing 
the oppressor : which would compel both landlord 
and legislature to listen to their claims : and which 
nothing but the blessed Bible has ever yet created. 

Here. then, we have a monument of Rome's 
destroying power mournfully instructive — a conn- 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 203 



try at once a garden and a grave ; indented by har- 
bors without a sail, pervaded by rivers whose banks 
are still ; with above the finest clime unavailed of, 
beneath the richest mines uuwrought, around the 
most fertile soil untilled; and inhabited by a race, 
which in natural parts have few superiors amongst 
the sons of men. Well, let the extent of the ruin 
at least serve to convince us of the malignity of the 
cause. And when we behold Ireland teeming with 
natural stores, yet starving ; covered with improve- 
ment societies, yet a desert ; and receiving millions 
of aid. yet a beggar ; — when we see Scotchmen in 
our banks, and Irishmen in their prisons; foreign 
ships doing our trade, and our countrymen not the 
crews but the cargoes; — when, in short, we look on 
every jail and poorhouse, soldier and policeman, oh ' 
let it give fresh zeal to our evangelistic efforts, and 
fervor to our prayers on behalf of a land on which 
God has so long permitted Rome to do her worst, 
— as if He thereby designed it to be a special 
warning to all nations to beware of her blasting 
power. 

The Political. — We charge on Popery mainly 
Ireland's political evils. First, but for it those 
grievances which exist amongst us would either have 
been mitigated or long since removed. There is a 
moral state which invites misrule, and another which 
makes it impossible. Demosthenes keenly felt this 
when he told the Athenians that even were Philip 



204 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

dead, their conduct would raise up another Philip. 
It has been the experience of all ages, that rulers 
will enslave if the people will let them ; and that 
the only effectual breastwork against the encroach- 
ments of the one, is the elevation of the other. It 
is only below a certain moral level that a nation can 
be trampled on, and the moment it gets above this it 
flings off the oppressor. Hence, Popish lands are 
the home of despotism, and Protestant lands the 
sanctuary of freedom. Hence America, Scotland, 
England, have flung off the tyrant's yoke. If. then, 
Ireland is in bondage, as some maintain, it must be 
because she lacks those qualities which would have 
secured liberty for her just as certainly as for them: 
and hence those priests who loudly complain of her 
thraldom, are themselves convicted as indirectly the 
cause ; for had any other nation than England been 
placed by her side, would not the result have been 
the same? The name, did we say? — Let the pres- 
ent state of Europe answer the question. It was in 
England's power to oppress Ireland to any extent 
for aught such a priest-ridden nation could have 
hindered her ; and had England continued Popish, 
all history is a fable if she would not have oppressed 
her. Thus it follows, that the political blessings 
Ireland enjoys, have sprung from England's Prot- 
estantism^ while such political wrongs as she suffers 
are indirectly owing to her oivn Popery . Nay. in 
truth, the worst grievances she has ever endured 
are directly chargeable on Rome. Were not those 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 205 

" disabilities," for instance, of which Roman Catho- 
lics have so loudly complained, in great part of 
their own procuring? Did not Rome convince our 
fathers, by too many unmistakable proofs, that they 
must either bind her, or themselves submit to be 
bound? And when they saw that she never got 
her hands loose but the first use she made of her 
liberty was to spring on themselves^ what else could 
they do but bind her again ? 

So much for our political grievances. We next 
assert that Popery robs of their benign influence 
most of our political blessings. Instance its inllii- 
ence on our laws. A highly virtuous state of so- 
ciety makes somewhat tolerable the worst laws, 
while a vicious state renders mischievous the best ; 
the one turns the evil into good, and the other the 
good into evil. In Scotland, for example, those 
taxes on servants, dogs, &c, from which we are ex- 
empt, have proved blessings, by leading the people 
to a simpler style of living ; while our exemption 
has proved a curse, by encouraging in us a more ex- 
pensive one. In Ulster, again, the ]}oor-latv works 
so well, that several poorhouses are almost self- 
supporting ; while in Minister several unions are 
bankrupt, and the very guardian's board rooms are 
the scenes of party violence. And had the Scotch 
Presbyterians got those £8,000.000 of relief which 
we so shamefully mismanaged ; judging by their 
whole character, we are entitled to assert that they 
would have annihilated pauperism in Scotland. 



206 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

Alas, it is the same, with almost every other effort 
of legislation. O'Connell boasted he could " drive a 
coach and six through any Act of Parliament :" and 
thus, in direct contradiction to the whole aim of his 
life, unconsciously proclaimed how little mere legis- 
lation can do if it has not a virtuous community on 
which to operate. 

Instance, again, our glorious Constitution. Take 
that very bulwark of liberty, trial by jury ; and we 
have demonstrated by various facts that Popery has 
in numerous cases made it an absolute mockery, and 
that justice would be infinitely safer in the hands 
of the judge. Hence the friends of truth and order 
are rejoicing in the late " Justice's Act," which vir- 
tually transfers so much power from the juries to 
the magistrates. So utterly incompatible is the 
genius of Popery with that of liberty, — so unsuited 
does it seem to any other state than one of slavery, 
— that even this trifling approximation towards 
despotism has done wonders in quieting those 
horse- whipping priests, who, turning our very con- 
stitution against itself, trampled down the liberty 
of whole districts because they knew that no Popish 
jury would convict them. 

Take one other bulwark of British liberty, the 
'•elective franchise." Between the landlord and the 
priest this has also been little better than a mock- 
ery ; for the people must generally vote for what- 
ever candidate these masters direct. If they dis- 
obey the former, they are ejected : if they rebel 



RO?,lE BLASTS MAI^S TEMPORAL STATE. 207 

against the latter, tliey are ■ damned." * ; Who- 
ever." exclaimed Father John O'Sullivan from the 
altar, on the eve of an election for Kerry — ;i who- 
ever will vote for that renegade, the Knight of 
Kerry, I won't prepare him for death, but will let 
him die like a beast, neither will I baptize his chil- 
dren.-'* Fancy, then, these people between those two 
tyrants — the one threatening temporal ruin, and the 
other eternal ! It is all very well when both sup- 
port the same candidate ; and right thankful are the 
poor creatures to escape by being simply robbed of 
their rights as freemen. But the landlord, being 
often a Protestant, is frequently opposed by the 
priest ; and then, imagine if you can the dilemma 
of the people ! Still the Scylla of beggary is 
nothing to the Charybdis of perdition ; the terrors 
of the confessional far exceed even those of the 
" crowbar brigade ;" and so the priests generally 
carry it over the landlords, have frequently boasted 
that they could " return cow-bo} r s to parliament," 
and have often led their dupes to the hustings when 
they scarce even know the candidate's name ! Thus 
one of the dearest rights of freemen is by Popery 
transformed into not only a yoke of bondage, but 
such an instrument of ruin, that thousands of the 
people would deem its withdrawal the greatest mercy 
that England could extend them. Yet these priests 
are the champions of popular liberty ! — and one of 
the standing themes of their platform harangues is 

* See Progress of Confessional, p. 66. 



208 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



the deficiency of the suffrage, and the necessity for 
its extension ! ! 

Finally. Rome is the direct cause of our political 
agitations. It has been well said, that it is her na- 
ture to produce tyranny when she is in power, and 
rebellion when she is not : and this single sentence 
is the key to the political intrigues of the priesthood 
in every land. How has it been exemplified in Ire- 
laud, making her entire history one of disaffection 
and rebellion ! Or who so simple as still to doubt, 
that the real aim of the Irish priesthood, through 
all their political struggles, has not been equality 
but ascendency, not liberty for the people but su- 
premacy for themselves ? Shall we call it charity 
or infatuation which refuses to see that the real 
meaning of Irish agitation is the restlessness of 
priestly restraint? Can any man believe that the 
love of popular liberty is the reason why these rev- 
erend agitators have kept the country simmering for 
ao;es. and sown it thick with the seeds of lawlessness 
and crime ; or doubt that the real yoke which galls 
them is our freedom, and that had we but the laws 
of Italy or Spain, which degrade the people and exalt 
the priests, they would be as loyal as their brethren 
of those realms? Talk of Popery as the friend of 
liberty ! whose every dogma breathes despotism, and 
whose every act exemplifies it ! That any Protestant 
should ever doubt its intolerance, because its priests 
have had sometimes the hardihood to deny it, is to 
us a matter of perfect astonishment. Surely the 



ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 209 



last two years might be sufficient to open the blind- 
est eyes. Those priests, during the revolutions of 
1848, with a subtlety altogether worth}* of them, 
appeared foremost in the republican ranks, and were 
the noisiest of the crowds who shouted. " liberty, 
equality, fraternity," — were all the while quietly 
waiting the turn of the tide ; and so are now the 
avowed leaders of that dreadful conspiracy which is 
formed against the freedom of Europe. Liberty ! 
Are they not making every effort which conscious 
guilt and terror can suggest to extinguish the spirit 
of freedom in the world ? Is not Pio Nono at this 
moment the rallying point of all Europe's trembling 
despots ? Has he not heaped paternal benedictions 
on the perjured tyrant of Naples, and the unprinci- 
pled usurper of France? And is not his own des- 
potism so intolerable, that he needs two nations to 
protect him from the violence of his oppressed chil- 
dren? Liberty! His own poor subjects cannot 
wring from the " Holy Father" one single, drop of 
liberty's sweet cup. And is not the whole Romish 
Church publicly rejoicing in a series of the most 
shocking outrages, ever committed against liberty 
and humanity, by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ? Did 
not Cullen himself, in a late letter to the Umvers, 
echo the blasphemy now ringing from every conti- 
nental altar, and ascribe these atrocities to the special 
interference of Providence? Yet he is the head of 
those Irish priests who have for years been the 

champions of freedom ! — and who now, while lavish- 

14 



210 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

ing their blessings on Europe's basest tyrants, are 
defaming its most hallowed patriots ! Instance Kos- 
suth, that representative and symbol of outraged 
freedom. When the world was doing honor to the 
illustrious exile, they not only stood sullenly aloof 
but betook them to their usual weapon, slander ; 
when gladness beamed on the brows of thousands, 
the scowl of vexation lowered upon theirs ; and 
when both shores of the Atlantic resounded with 
shouts of welcome to the Magyar hero, their conduct 
clearly testified that they would have shouted more 
joyfully over his grave. How often have we heard 
Irish Roman Catholics speak with rapture of Amer- 
ican freedom, and long to fly to that land of promise 
from Britain's Egyptian thraldom ; little imagining 
that America owed this liberty, under God, to those 
puritans whom they are taught to abhor, and that 
but for them it might now have been like such lands 
of Popish colonists as Brazil and Mexico ! Yes, the 
poor creatures little know that the freedom that they 
enjoy even here is owing to Protestantism : that 
were Ireland's rulers Popish, it would fare no better 
than other Popish lands : that in Protestant coun- 
tries only can Roman Catholics breathe and speak 
freely, without dreading a spy in every companion, 
and an arrest in every corner : and that if over such 
Popish lands as France, during her short-lived re- 
publics, liberty has ever hovered, it has only been, 
like the bird of Noah, over a wide waste of waters 
seeking in vain for a spot to rest on ! 



— ~1 

ROME BLASTS MAN'S TEMPORAL STATE. 211 

Thus Popery in various ways blasts man's tem- 
poral state. By demoralizing it degrades, by doing 
both it impoverishes, and by impoverishing it farther 
degrades and demoralizes. By withholding knowl- 
edge it enslaves and beggars, and by these it renders 
the acquisition of knowledge impracticable ; so that 
here we have a course of action and reaction going 
on, of cause and eifect constantly reproducing each 
other. And thus, like the snakes of Laocoon, this 
great red dragon has twined itself round every limb 
of the body social, in so many deadly coils that dis- 
entanglement seems hopeless, and death inevitable. 
Yet think of the unblushing effrontery with which 
the Irish priests are this moment lauding it as God's 
choicest blessing to man. Think of Dr. Cullen, 
while doing his utmost to complete the degradation 
of which his predecessors have left so little to be 
done, having the hardihood to say, that Borne u has 
been tlie instructress and civilizer of all nations of 
tJie earth. Every noble and useful institution that 
we possess has originated with her ; and to her are 
due tJie preservation of the arts and sciences in t/ie 
age of darkness, and their revival and diffusion at 
a later period ! /"* Ay. these are the terms in 
which " the Primate of all Ireland" addresses Chris- 
tendom in the nineteenth century ! If he had meant 
the most cutting sarcasm on his religion, he could 
not have expressed himself better ; and this single 
sentence proves how utterly hopeless are the men 

* Address to the Corporation of Drogheda Aug. 17, 1851. 



212 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



whose own Chief is so reckless as to make such an 
outrageous assertion in the very face of the world. 
When at the late Dublin " Defence" Demonstration 
Mr. Moore ventured to hint that a Pope could per- 
secute, this " head of the Irish Church" in holy hor- 
ror stopped him~ assured him that Rome was " the 
parent of liberty," and proved it by refusing him 
liberty to explain ! Oh, if such is our metropolitan 
primate, what must be our rural priests ! If he 
could thus speak in the face of Christendom, what, 
think you, will they stop at amongst a peasantry 
whom by such fearful contrivances they have so well 
prepared to believe any falsehoods ! If he thus ven- 
tured to bully a member of Parliament, how must 
they handle their degraded slaves ! And if that 
member did not dare to open his lips in reply to a 
statement so outrageous, what must be the prostrate 
vassalage in which the common people crouch and 
cower at the feet of their ghostly tyrants ! 



CHAPTER VI. 

ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 

We have now reached a part of our subject before 
which all the rest must fade like the lamp in the 
light of day. It is the unceasing assurance of One 
who has the best right to know, that in comparison 
to eternity all which ever engrossed us in time is as 



ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 213 

the dancing bubble on the stream. He assures us 
that we stand on a narrow isthmus, with on one side 
an ocean of bliss, and on the other a lake of fire ; 
and He conjures us by such motives as might wake 
the rocks and stir the tenants of the grave, to seek 
the one and flee the other. If, therefore, we find 
Rome exposing its dupes to that fiery perdition 
while pretending to save them from it. and in order 
to do so, borrowing the name of Jesus, and steal- 
ing the passwords of heaven, then are all its other 
atrocities angel innocence to this : and it stands 
forth to the execration of the universe as the most 
dreadful plot against the human soul that ever was 
hatched in the depths of hell. 

In proof of this, it were surely enough to refer to 
our previous argument. Would you say that a system 
which so utterly blasts the earth, could be possibly 
fit for the skies ? — that a church which makes a hell 
below, could make a heaven above ? — or that those 
eternal laws which are essential to the safety of the 
universe, are dispensed with only in its great me- 
tropolis ? The point, therefore, is already proved, 
unless you suppose that God requires higher qualifi- 
cations for earth, his footstool, than for heaven, his 
throne ; or that He who cannot endure sin even on 
this fallen earth, permits it to deluge the most glori- 
ous of worlds ? But as there is a godless liberalism 
abroad now-a-days, which calls it bigotry to say that 
the Romanist is in any great danger — which, be- 
neath the stolen garb of charity, dishonors Grod, 



214 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



leaves souls to perish, and paralyzes the efforts of 
those who would save them — and which, perhaps, 
may even ?ay that we have drawn too dark a pic- 
ture of Rome in this book — we shall now take her 
even as they would dress her out for view ; and, 
to leave them forever without excuse, prove our 
fearful charge with all the clearness of demonstra- 
tion. 

They will at least grant that happiness or misery 
depends mainly on the state of the heart. They 
are aware that Hainan, a premier, was wretched 
because a gate-keeper would not bow to him ; and 
Ahab, a king, took to bed because denied a patch 
of ground ; and the world's Conqueror wept because 
he could not push his conquests to the stars : and 
they will surely admit that men torn with such pas- 
sions must anywliere be wretched. Yet all men 
have within them the germs, at least, of the same 
passions ; and hence, till these are crushed, true 
happiness is out of the question. Surely they must 
see this ; yet we shall make it still more plain. G-od 
himself is infinitely happy only because he is infi- 
nitely good. It cannot be because he is in heaven, 
for he is everywhere ; nor because he is Lord of tbe 
Universe, for he was happy before it was made : 
nothing, therefore, remains from which it can spring 
but his own infinite excellence. 'Tis the same with 
all his creatures. Angels do not surely leave their 
bliss behind them, when they come down from heaven 
on errands of love ; nor devils their misery, when 



ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 215 



they come up from hell on their schemes of wicked- 
ness. No : their own bosoms are a heaven and a 
hell respectively. We ourselves also feel this ; with 
all our efforts to find happiness without, our truest 
happiness is found within, and consists not so much 
in where as in what we are. We see it in the 
serenity of many a cottager, and the suicide of many 
a prince ; in the dark scowl of villany. and the sweet 
smile of kindness : and even in the peevish face of 
the child when naughty, and ins beaming counte- 
nance when good. If therefore, you would make 
us happy in any world, there is but one way — make 
us good. Substitute in our hearts one set of affec- 
tions for another, radiant kindness for lowering 
malignity, transparent truth for sneaking falsehood, 
noble generosity for despicable selfishness, open 
frankness for sullen suspicion, in a word, ethereal 
holiness for foul pollution ; and is it not perfectly 
manifest, that such a mere exchange of affections 
were to pass from hell to heaven, and that witltout 
this no external enjoyments could materially avail ? 
Now, to effect this change is the grand object of 
the gospel. Its whole aim is to purify the heart. 
By doing this, it nips both sin and misery in the 
bud. and thus necessarily secures happiness on earth, 
and meetness for heaven. Here is its blessed plan, 
which, for simplicity of design and perfection of suc- 
cess is worthy of its glorious Author. Here is 
neither mystery nor magic, but the most perfect sys- 
tem of adaptation. By the Divine Spirit thus turn- 



216 THE GRAND CAUSE. 

ing a man from sin to holiness, he must become a 
good and therefore a happy man. 

Look now to false systems of* religion, and they 
never once aim at the heart ; on the contrary, Satan's 
grand object seems throughout them all to be to 
prevent the entrance of one holy feeling. Their 
whole round of worship is a substitution of the for- 
mal for the spiritual. Everything Is designed for 
the senses, and nothing for the heart: so that their 
most imposing ceremonials are but pompous mock- 
ery, and their devoutest worshipper a whited 
sepulchre. Yet is not this a perfect picture of 
Rome ? In her system, all is pardon — regeneration 
is unknown — salvation in sin, never salvation from 
sin. The very term holiness is bereft of its mean- 
ing, and made a mystic sign — so we have holy water, 
salt, oil, clay, wells, loughs, trees — everything but a 
holy heart. All is external — penance of the body 
for sorrow of soul, confession to the priest for con- 
trition before God, corporeal sufferings on earth, and 
material fires in purgatory. Even the means of 
grace are made substitutes for grace. Tliose pipes 
and conduits of the waters of life, whose whole vir- 
tue lies in their connection witli the Fountain, are 
substituted for the waters they were meant to con- 
vey ; so you have devotions whose value is their 
number, not their fervor — the fact of their perform- 
ance is everything, the spirit is nothing at all. We 
ask, can this sanctify? Does it do so '. We see in 
God's gracious plan the most beautiful connection 



ROME BLIGHTS MANS ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 217 



between the means and the end : but what connec- 
tion is there between holy water and a holy life 

between bleeding knees and a bleeding heart ? The 
one, religion cannot but make holy, yet it is a " dam- 
nable heresy ;" the other can only do so by some 
such magic as the witches of Macbeth would have 
employed, yet it is the religion of the holy God ! 
Oh, if this system can save, of course so can pagan- 
ism ; for its scheme of salvation is precisely similar. 
Do you say we are overstating the case? Enter 
any Irish chapel during mass — mark that priest in 
his fantastic robes, surrounded by boys in white 
frocks, often the greatest scamps in the parish — ob- 
serve his mystic movements, his bows and genuflex- 
ions : now turning to the altar, and then to the peo- 
ple ; shifting the mass-book to one side, and then to 
the other — and remember that most of all this is 
dumb show, and when he does speak, it is to mutter 
id a language the people neither hear nor under- 
stand. And do you say this has the least effect on 
their hearts ? Then observe their vacant, devotion- 
less looks ! 

Indeed, if the endless prayers of the Roman Cath- 
olic had the least sanctifying power, he could not 
but be the purest of men. Yet observe the scenes 
of abomination enacted at every holy lough and 
well. Visit St. Patrick's well on midsummer eve — 
see those crowds of devotees, with bare feet and tied 
up heads, — some running in circles, some kneeling 
in groups, some jumping about like maniacs, most 



218 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



of them covered with dust and sweat, not a few with 
| blood, and all taking incredible pains that neither 
browsers nor petticoats shall protect their knees 
• from the sharp stones : while from the whole crowd 
! a horrid din continues to rise to heaven. And you 
call this devotion ! Then read the following pic- 
ture, drawn by an eye-witness : — " Shouting, and 
howling, and swearing, and carousing, filled up every 
pause, and threw over the spot the air of hell. I 
was never more shocked and struck with horror , 
and perceiving many of them intoxicated with reli- 
gious fervor and all-potent whiskey, and warming 
into violence before midnight, at which time the dis- 
traction was at its climax, I left this scene of hu- 
man degradation in a state of mind not easily de- 
scribed." Do you say the priests are not accounta- 
ble for such scenes? Then read a little farther : — 
u On this occasion, the Irish Catholic clergy were 
the mad priests of these bacchanalian orgies — the 
fomentors of fury, the setters on to strife, the mis- 
chievous ministers of the debasement of their peo- 
ple, lending their aid to plunge their credulous con- 
gregations in ceremonious horrors."* Thus, under 
their own priests' special direction, their very pray- 
ers are made pretexts for sinning. Instead of being 
a means of removing sin, they are made the purchase- 
money for greater indulgence in it ; and their rounds 
of devotion are designed to clear scores with the 
Most High, in order to begin iniquity de novo ! 

* M 'Gavin's Protestant, pp. 403, 404. 



ROME BLIGHTS Man's ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 219 



But even supposing such things were not so, and 
that the utmost we could charge on this church was 
mere formality, you will please recollect what this 
means. W hat would you call professions of penitence 
which is not felt, and of desires for holiness which are 
not cherished ? What else but a mockery — a lie 1 
And this is presented to the Holy One, before whom 
angels veil their faces — and as Rome's best service ! 
So that unless He who denounced the Pharisees for 
such guilty homage has since changed his mind — 
unless He who abhors hypocrisy everywhere, accepts 
it at his altar — unless the august Sovereign of worlds 
takes pleasure in mummeries with which any mortal 
would feel insulted — the worship of Rome mast be 
an abomination in his eyes. If it were either pleas- 
ing to God or profitable to man, would you not at 
least see some signs thereof in the priests them- 
selves 1 You say they " fast oft ;" well, to judge by 
their portty forms, the exercise seems to agree with 
them. You assert they keep Lent most scrupulous- 
ly ; be it so, they seem to thrive as well on salt fish 
as the three Hebrew children on pulse and lentiles. 
You say their prayers are manifold — we deny it not ; 
we see their Breviaries in their hands, even on the 
tops of the coaches. But are they indeed God-fear- 
ing-men ? — do their souls melt with the love of Jesus ? 
Let our previous pages answer. There is only too 
much reason to fear that many of them are infidels 
in heart. " Do you know," asked a Kerry priest of 
a gentleman well known to the author — " Do you 



220 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



know what religion I am of? — you think me a Cath- 
olic priest, but in reality I am a Mohammedan I 
believe Mohammed was as good a teacher of morals 
^as Christ, and far more successful: when other 
means failed, he employed the sword, and beyond a 
doubt it is the best means of propagating morals and 
religion ! !" Oh ! the judgment-day will reveal the 
fearful process through which the mind of many an 
intelligent priest lias passed, commencing with super- 
stition, and ending in skepticism When he emerges 
from Maynooth. we have little doubt of his fanatical 
sincerity ; but once clear of its gloomy cloisters, it 
would be strange indeed if some of the light which 
surrounds him would not in course of time reach 
his mind. We will admit that he believes much of 
Rome's worst mummeries, for we know the " strong 
delusions'' under which some are left. We will say 
he sincerely thinks Rome can reverse the divine 
aphorism, " To obey is better than sacrifice," and can 
even make right wrong. We will allow that he is 
convinced God is at certain times offended with 
flesh meat, and propitiated by fish, and that the food 
which is good on Thursday is pernicious on Friday. 
We will grant that in all this and more, he may be 
a devout believer. But hark ! — he is just telling 
that trembling mother on whose brow sits distress, 
that he has prayed her darling child a certain length 
out of purgatory, but that it will need so many more 
masses, which in Rome's vocabulary means so much 
more money, to pray him wholly out. The poor 



ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 221 



creature believes him — but can he believe himself? 
And will you call us uncharitable for suspecting that 
man's honesty ? — a man whom one such act leaves 
no choice between the character of a fanatical maniac 
and that of a foul impostor — whose intellect super- 
stition must have shattered, or else who must know 
he is deceiving that poor woman, and driving a vil- 
lanous trade on all that is tender and sacred in her 
soul. 

Fellow-Christians, what can you say to all this ? 
Behold our degraded countrymen, with many of 
whom the best hopes of heaven are the priest, and 
the loftiest views of happiness, a drunken fit. Can 
you say such creatures are meet for the angelic 
throngs ? Then unless there is a purgatory, where 
else must they go ? View that hoary wretch bend- 
ing beneath the weight of crimes and years — his 
hands perhaps stained with blood, and his priest the 
keeper of the horrid secret. He will soon enter 
eternity — as he is. What place is he fit for ? — 
heaven? One starts at the thought. Is it a little 
oil rubbed on the body of that dying and now un- 
conscious sinner, that can purify his soul ? or even 
if there were a purgatory, what more virtue could its 
sufferings possess than those earthly penances, in 
spite of which he lived a wretch ? And if he were 
admitted to heaven, what would it serve him ? If 
the whole Church of Rome were translated thither 
bodily, as she is or ever was i:i her palmiest days, 
what could this avail her. unless you suppose that 



222 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



place to be the heaven of the poets of Greece or the 
prophet of Mecca ? But if you grant it is a place 
of transcendent holiness^ whose employments, and 
enjoyments too. consist in serving God; then, what 
happiness could it bring to a church which regards 
virtue as a bore — absolution from it a blessing — the 
Sabbath a weariness — and prayer a penance 1 Why, 
such a heaven would be utterly insupportable to her 
genuine votaries. Its bluoni would be dismal, and 
its purity hateful to them. The holier its throngs, 
they would be to them the more revolting ; the 
sweeter its strains, they would grate the more harshly 
on their ears ; and though to minister to their hap- 
piness you could drain every cup, and rifle every 
flower of paradise, you would still find them wander- 
ing in misery through its bowers, sighing to escape 
from its holy restraints, and regarding such a deliv- 
erance as their highest heaven. 

Can the reader ask farther proof that Rome 
blights man's eternal prospects ? What then, he 
may inquire, is there no salvation in that church 1 
Adored be the living God, we believe there is. By 
various arrangements, truly wonderful. He makes 
some rays of heaven to struggle even through its 
bars and gratings. That truth which Satan's cun- 
ning has mingled with this system, the better to se- 
duce therewith, God's infinite grace often makes the 
means of saving ; and while many receive only the 
error and perish, some receive along with it enough 
of the truth to neutralize its deadly power Yes, 



ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 223 



many Roman Catholics are saved, but, think you, 
does Home deserve the credit % — let her own con- 
duct answer. Is it on her best or her worst men 
that she has usually conferred her favors ? — which 
class lias she thus iwoved to be most after her heart 1 
— has she not almost as uniformly persecuted her 
good men, as she lias canonized her bad ? You tell 
us of Fenelon — we reply, that she banished him. 
You speak of the Port-Royalists — do you know their 
sad history ? You quote the name of Pascal — his 
godly sister was hunted to death, and he died a 
heretic, if papal bulls be true, and would have cer- 
tainly died a martyr had he not slept in his tomb 
ere the authorship of his " Letters" had transpired. 
And you call these her children ? — her step-children 
you mean. Yet it is with their good name she 
would ofttimes fain perfume her foulness ; and it is 
with their mantle that even " Protestant" pseudo- 
liberals would sometimes seek to hide her deformity ! 
Why do they not rather quote the men whom she 
has delighted to honor ? Why won't they go to her 
own authentic catalogue of canonized saints — of 
those who in her judgment best deserved heaven — 
such butchers, for instance, as Simon cle Montfort, 
who figures in the list as the holy St. Dominic. 
These are the men whom Rome lauds on earth and 
sends to heaven ! Oh ! could they enter that blessed 
place, retaining the character, and free to perpetrate 
the crimes which procured their canonization, they 



224 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



would soon wreck it of every vestige of its loveli- 
ness, and convert it into a pandemonium. 

And now, in conclusion, when we speak of Popery 
as a Satanic conspiracy against the human soul, we 
surely do not mean that its priests are in the plot — 
they who are likely to be its worst victims — or that 
they even know the work they are doing, and the 
master they serve ? We are convinced that, in this 
respect, they " know not what they do," that they as 
little dream as their flocks of the master-mind which 
presides over their system, and that, in this sense, at 
least, : ' they be blind leaders of the blind." No ; 
the plot is too deep even for Jesuitism to contrive ; 
a greater than Loyola is here ; and it is this con- 
spiracy against the soul that proves at once its pater- 
nity and iniquity. If it only cursed our countrymen 
for time, it were bad enough : yet this is the mere 
underplot of this " master-piece of Satan." It is its 
fearful distinction, that it traffics in " the souls of 
men ;" that, not content with blasting them in time, 
it pursues them through eternity ; not satisfied with 
destroying them on earth, it shuts heaven against 
them, follows them beyond that grave where wick- 
edness usually ceases from troubling, and reserves 
its most tremendous curse for that other world 
whither ordinary hatred refuses to pursue ! 

And now, fellow-Christians, we must not, cannot 
leave this awful subject, without a word to you. Is 
it really so that we nightly sleep calm on our pil- 
low, while souls all around us are passing before the 



ROME BLIGHTS MAN'S ETERNAL PROSPECTS. 225 



throne — their best preparation the unction of a 
priest, and their fairest plea the merits of the Vir- 
gin ? Have we lived for years amongst them, and 
though often told of their danger, folded our arms 
and shut our eyes, content with that specious plea 
of indifference disguised in the robes of charity — 
'* God is merciful V Or. if we have felt some Prot- 
estant zeal, has it been kindled by the strange fire 
of party strife full as much as by, the holy flame of 
jealousy for God and love to souls? We implore 
you to ponder this chapter on your knees. Others 
may deny its truth but you. at least, admit it : in- 
difference on your part. then, is left without excuse. 
You know the unregenerate soul could not be happy 
in heaven, cannot be truly happy anywhere ; — that, 
could it roam creation in quest of felicity, it would 
find the words emblazoned on every star it ap- 
proached — ;i There is no peace to the wicked." 
But. even could it be happy in heaven, you know it 
were impious to suppose its admittance there. Satan 
was hurled thence the moment he sinned : and could 
one sinner enter its gates, his presence would hush, in 
an instant, its myriad harps, and darken the brows 
of its radiant throngs. Then, what insensibility holds 
us back from greater exertion on behalf of Rome's 
victims ? How many of them may, on that awful 
day, plead our guilt in palliation of their own, and 
cry, " Refuge failed us ; for these Christians would 
not care for our souls !" Then, by the love of Him 
who saved us. and commands us to make known 

15 



226 THE GRAND CAUSE. 



his salvation to others; by our own tremendous 
responsibility as the keepers of our brethren's souls ; 
and by the inestimable worth and unutterable dan- 
ger of perishing millions, let us awake from our 
stupor and fly to their rescue. Imagine, if yon can, 
the obsequies of one lost soul! What, in compari- 
son, is earth's most dreadful catastrophe? The 
waves of Time's vast ocean, how soon they will 
close over the world's most fearful shipwreck ! and 
the historian will scarcely mark, by one passing sen- 
tence, the spot where it occurred. But, oh, one 
lost sour, ! Well might the infidel thus rebuke the 
Christian, and exclaim. " Tf I believed the half of 
what you say you believe. I would fly through the 
world with the awful news ; — I would force my way 
with it into every dwelling ; — I would make it ring 
from every steeple, and float on every breeze ; — till 
my tongue would cleave to my jaws, and exhausted 
nature sink down and expire." 



PART IV. 
THE CURE. 

Thus have we traced the causes of Ireland's 
wretchedness through their manifold complications ; 
shown how they are like wheels within wheels : and 
while estimating the share which various subordinate 
causes have had in creating it, traced it to Popery 
as the Grand Primary Source. That there are 
other causes than Popery, we have therefore freely 
acknowledged ; but we have proved that these are 
either produced or aggravated by it. That there 
may be others still, which the brevity of this work 
has forbidden us to notice, we as freely allow : but 
after making the most liberal discount on the score 
of all these which can with the least reason be 
demanded, still Popery stands out in such fearful 
prominence, that they seem in comparison as the 
drop of the bucket, or the chaff on the summer 
thrashing-floor. 

And to prevent the remotest possibility of a 
fallacy in our argument, we have conducted it 
through the twofold process of induction and deduc- 
tion — of analysis and synthesis. Like some great 



228 THE CURE. 



river, we have in our Second Part ascended the 
dark stream of Ireland's woes to its source, and 
found that to be her Religious state, marking as 
we passed the principal tributaries. And then, to 
put the case beyond cavil forever, we have in our 
Third Part turned and sailed down the turbid 
stream, and demonstrated not only that Popery is 
its main channel, but that to it these tributaries 
chiefly owe their existence, course, and power ; that, 
to carry out the figure, it is the enormous valley 
which it has in the course of ages scooped out. which 
has of necessity reflected them towards it, and in- 
creased their force, however distant their rise or 
different for a time their direction. 

And. that Rome might have nothing to complain 
of, we have traced her through every age and land, 
and still found her true to her own motto, Idem 
semper ubiqve ; — that her whole course through the 
moral heavens has been that of some blood-red 
comet, wild and fearful. And we have drawn our 
proofs of this, not from her old musty records, those 
"relics of a barbarous age." as she would fain have 
us regard them ; but from Rome herself, and espe- 
cially as she now lives and moves in the full cos- 
tume of those newest fashions with which she has 
bedizened her haggard form, in hope to enamor 
modern Christendom. 

Nay, we have clone more still. Our manifold 
facts and arguments we have based or. eternal laivs. 
We have shown that there are certain laws, which, 



THE MYSTERY SOLVED." 220 



being complied with, man must be happy, and being 
disregarded, he mist be wretched in both worlds ; 
that by nature we violate these, hence all the mise- 
ries of earth and hell ; that true religion, by restor- 
ing us to their dominion, blesses, and that false 
religion, by disregarding them, curses in a thousand 
ways. Now. we have seen that Romanism crosses 
all those laws, and therefore must be a country's 
curse and poison. Our argument is thus based on 
eternal laws ; therefore to oppose it were as prepos- 
terous as to oppose those sciences which rest on the 
same foundation. And all the anathemas which 
Rome can hurl against it, prove not its weakness 
but her own, and resemble at best the impotent 
attempt of the fabled Titans to storm the heavens 
and dethrone the God of gods. 

And thus every part of Ireland's great puzzle we 
have solved. The mystery of her state we have laid 
bare to the light of heaven ; and that so distinctly, 
that the blindest eye can scarce help seeing every 
chamber of its dark labyrinth, illumined by that 
single word — Popery ; and the deafest ear can 
scarce help hearing the doleful sound echoing from 
every hill and valley, rock and stream, — Home is 

THE GRAND CURSE OF IRELAND. 

We now proceed to our last part — the Cure. But 
as this has been already so clearly foreshadowed, it 
will need neither elaborate nor lengthened examina- 
tion. We shall sum up all we shall deem it needful 
to say under the two heads of the Medicine and the 



230 THE CURE. 

Treatment. And for the sake of greater clearness 
and conclusiveness, we shall here also pursue the 
double process of induction and deduction. And as 
we have seen how clearly the cure has been fore- 
shadowed in the cause, we beg the reader to notice, 
as he proceeds, how remarkably every part of the 
argument on the cause is confirmed and illumined 
by each successive step in the cure ; and how, like 
two reflectors, they thus shed on each other such a 
flood of light as gives the entire demonstration the 
radiant clearness of noonday. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 

Of the numberless pa?iaceas prescribed for Ire- 
land, we think it necessaiy to notice only the follow- 
ing. One class of men, full of her civil grievances, 
propose legislation ; another, chiefly impressed with 
her ignorance, preach education ; a third, looking 
mainly at her natural richness and actual poverty, 
<rv. develop her industrial resources; a fourth, in 
view of her moral and religious degradation, declare 
that the gospel is her only true remedy ; while a fifth 
class, believing that each of these remedies is more 
or less needed, say, let us have them all. We shall 
briefly attend to the claims of each. 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 231 

The Civil. — We have already proved that legis- 
lation can do little for us. and that almost the only 
ground which remains for it to occupy is the hind 
question. We need some more sweeping measure for 
the transfer of land than even the Encumbered Estates' 
Bill ; a thorough reform of those ruinous Chancery 
laws by which so many proprietors have doubtless 
been beggared ; and, above all, a new and equitable 
adjustment of the relation of landlord and tenant. 
No one can doubt that the want of such an adjust- 
ment has been fraught with evil, and it has. in a sec- 
ondary sense, been the cause of many of our agrarian 
crimes. It has done much to train our peasantry to 
insubordination, and beget that chronic discontent 
which now glooms on the brows of thousands of them. 
It has caused many of our bloodiest murders. It has 
furnished priests and demagogues with their best 
text against the " Sassenach;" proved a screen for 
Rome to hide her own desolations behind ; and thus 
served to break the force of the demonstration that 
she is Ireland's grand curse. It is desolating the 
only fair, because the only Protestant, province in 
Ireland ; provoking even its peaceful inhabitants to 
outrage : and thus destroying that moral tone which 
its gospel ministers have so carefully cultivated : and 
how much more serious those outrages would now be 
but for these gospel ministers, on whom some are dis- 
posed to father them all, is pretty evident from the 
fact that they are almost exclusively the work of 
Ribbonmen. 



232 THE CURE. 



And what lias this ruinous delay of a measure so 
obviously just, gained for the landlord himself ? 
Whereas he might now have been beloved and pros- 
perous, at least in Ulster, amidst a grateful and 
nourishing tenantry, he has done much to ruin both 
himself and them. And those concessions which he 
might once have easily made, and which then would 
have saved all parties, he can now scarcely make 
without beggaring himself. A fearful position ! 
but how is it to be avoided 1 We are passing 
through a social revolution : and the landlord who 
has done so much to cause it, must just take his share 
of its trials. It can save neither party, but must 
eventually ruin both to continue to stave off this 
question. It is idle to decry the tenant-right agita- 
tion, or denounce its advocates as incendiaries and 
communists. Were they all that is charged on them 
— and some of them are far from faultless — this 
would not affect the question an iota ; for it is not 
with " Reverend Agitators," but great laws, you 
have to contend. To Protection the country cannot 
return. Therefore to Free Trade principles every 
interest Must be adjusted. To apply them to pro- 
duce and not to land, to some things and not to 
others, is the only course which cannot he long per- 
severed in. There is no help for it then ; the land- 
lord must, like all other mortals, bow to great laws ; 
and, as we have said, the longer the delay, the reck- 
oning will be the more terrible. 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 233 

But beyond a few such measures as the above, 
civil remedies arc perfectly useless, and many of 
them in our present state positively injurious. There 
is a nonage in nations as well as individuals, during 
which to invest them with political immunities were 
like giving the child all the rights of a man : and a 
corruption, too, which perverts into a curse the best 
civil blessings, and during the continuance of which, 
to confer them on a people is just to increase their 
powers of mischief. And is not this the state of 
multitudes in Ireland? Instance the basis of all 
society — Truth. '■ As to finding out the truth." 
says Mr. Inglis, " by the mere evidence of witnesses, 
it is generally impossible. To save a relation from 
punishment, or to punish one who has injured a re- 
lation, an Irish witness will swear anything." And 
lest this should be deemed the language of Protes- 
tant " bigotry," hearken to their own champion, Dr. 
Doyle : — " The witnesses as often labor to conceal, as 
to manifest the truth ; — one class of them anxious to 
defeat the law, the other only intent on procuring 
conviction : both regardless of the obligation of an 
oath, and perfectly indifferent about contributing to 
the ends of justice."* Yet this is the man who, in 
the very same letters from which this sentence is ex- 
tracted, declares, that '•'• when it pleased God to have 
an island of saints upon earth, He prepared Ireland 
from afar for this high destiny. The Irish are, 

* Letters of J. K. L. (Dr. Doyle), p. 22. 



234 THE CURE. 



morally speaking, not only religious like other na- 
tions, but entirely devoted to religion !"* 

Does not this demonstrate, as we have already 
shown, that in the minds of both priest and people, 
piety and crime, prayer and perjury, are perfect- 
compatibles, and that Rome's religion is a system of 
magic, and never aims to improve the heart ? How 
often have we ourselves seen justice paralyzed on 
the 'bench, guilt escaping, innocence martyred, and 
the entire trial made a mere farce by perjured vil- 
lany ! Nay, how often is the priest himself the 
guiltiest ; and, to quote the confession of counsel re- 
garding his reverend client, who had been detected 
in the very act, how often is he a " common perjurer," 
and obliged " to leave the court a degraded man !"f 
Talk of political immunities to such beings ! — in 
whom are destroyed those moral obligations on 
which all the value of such rights depends. And 
would this be your cure for Ireland's evils ? You 
could not inflict a greater curse on a corrupt nation 
than to give them a code adapted only for a vir- 
tuous one : for this were just to hold out a premium 
to their profligaey, and increase their powers of mis- 
chief. Political rights, to be blessings at all, must 
be in hands which won't abuse them ; and however 
their sound may catch the thoughtless crowd, and 
suit the designing demagogue, slavery is better than 
jutraged freedom. France might ere now have 

* Letters of J. K. L. (Dr. Doyle), p. 58. 
\ Report, Sligo Assizes, March 13, 1837- 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 235 

taught us this much. Twice has she tried a repub- 
lic ; and by the votes of three fourths of the nation, 
she has not only confessed that she is unfit for free- 
dom, but that military despotism is to her a blessing 
in comparison. JNTations can only be governed by 
moral or physical power. And if men's consciences 
will not prevent them from robbing or murdering, 
what else can you do but chain and fetter them ? 
And when, as in our wretched land, Rome has so 
debauched the moral sense as to leave moral influence 
nothing to lay hold on, it is the most mischievous 
folly that ever was heard of to propose as her cure 
an increase of those immunities which her corruption 
has already so fearfully abused. Hence despotism 
always does, and always must, prevail in Popish 
lands. There, there is no moral principle for moral 
power to operate on ; and were our most ardent 
champions of freedom made rulers there, they would 
soon find their visions of liberty dispelled ; and that 
in a corrupt community there is not a foot of stand- 
ing-ground between despotism and anarchy, between 
the chains of Loyola and the arms of Robespierre. 
And is it not amazing that men have not long since 
learned this ? Seventy-six years ago, Protestant 
America became a free nation, and has ever since 
enjoyed unexampled prosperity ; while, within the 
same period. Popish France has twice passed through 
the various phases of freedom, anarchy, and iron 
despotism. Two goodly vessels ! The one, — her 
chart, the Bible ; her ballast, virtue ; her compass, 



236 THE CURE. 



true to the pole-star of heaven, — has been ploughing 
her glorious way over Time's mighty waters, freight- 
ed with blessings to all mankind. The other, with- 
out compass, or ballast, or chart, with mutiny on 
board and storms around, has been driven about 
amongst shoals and breakers, a spectacle and terror 
to the world ! Would that the exclamation of her 
dying statesman rung in our own rulers' ears — 
" France cannot do without a religion !" 

But why argue the question thus ? Have we not 
proved that, by the devices of Popery, the immuni- 
ties which Protestant simplicity would extend to the 
Papist, in hope to break his chains, are transformed 
into means of binding them more firmly around 
him ? — that to " extend the suffrage," for instance, to 
the people, is just to increase the power of the 
priests ? — and that while there are a thousand 
Father Walshes to threaten all with " everlasting 
punishment" who will not vote for the candidates of 
their choice, our champions of " equal rights" are 
only forging new chains for our countrymen, and 
playing into the hands of the worst tyrants the world 
ever saw !* Talk of civil rights beneath a system 
whose Iiead thus sneers at man's chief birth-right ! 
— " From this polluted fountain of indifference flows 
that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving, 
in favor and defence of liberty of conscience ;"f and 
which raves, too, against that :: ever-to-be-detested 

* Report of Select Committee on Bribery and Intimida- 
tion, f Encyclical Letter of Gregory XVI., 1832. 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 237 

liberty of the press," and would, if it dare, give the 
world's best literature the doom of the Alexandrian 
Library! A free Papist i Have you, then, forgot- 
ten the confessional ? Other tyrants take cognizance 
of your words and actions : but Popery penetrates 
your bosom. Others have policemen at your door; 
but it keeps a priest in'your heart. The Pope, with 
las myriad confessors dispersed over the globe, is 
both omnipresent and omniscient, and millions of 
bosoms lie open to his gaze. Talk of political rights 
beneath such an ubiquitous eye ! which watches 
every government ; and wherever it can, makes kings 
mere puppets, and premiers the wires to work them 
by : — which looks in at every door, and so completely 
murders family, and even conjugal confidence, that 
no man can breathe freely by his own hearth, or 
confide his secrets to the wife of his bosom ; — and 
beneath whose dreadful glare the father sees the 
brow of his innocent child growing darker each time 
she has been to the confessional ! We protest, then, 
against the folly of looking to Parliament for what 
it cannot do ; of applying civil remedies to a moral 
disorder ; of increasing the liberty of the people, 
while their priests only turn it to an engine of sla- 
very ; of curing our disturbances by enlarging the 
powers of our surpliced disturbers ; or of causing 
the olive-tree to flourish by strengthening the arms 
that would pluck it up by the roots ! 

The Educational. — On this subject there prevail 



2o6 THE CLUE. 

in Ireland, as elsewhere, very conflicting opinions, — 
one party opposing all education from which religion 
is severed and another resisting all with which it is 
united — the National Board being the symbol of the 
latter, and hostility to it the characteristic of the 
former. In both parties we have something to ap- 
prove, but more to condemn. We object to the vio- 
lent ultraism of the former. Forgetting that the 
Board, if an evil, has at least displaced a greater 
evil, the "hedge-school ; ; ' — that if a "curse," it is 
chiefly of their own procuring — for had their system 
wrought well, it had never existed ; there is a certain 
class who seem to regard it as the Gnostics viewed 
matter, and denounce it as fiercely as though it. not 
Popery, were the grand apostasy, and Marlborough 
Street, not Rome, were the seat of the Beast ! 
Well, the impression somehow prevails, that this en- 
mity does not wholly spring from heavenly motives, 
but is as much prompted bv the spirit of Diotrephes 
as that of Jesus. We ourselves cannot forget how 
pertinaciously these men continue to assert, in the 
face of all fact, that in Protestant schools connected 
with the Board the use of the Bible is more re- 
stricted than in those of their own Church Educa- 
tion Society. 

To the national system we know there is much to 
object ; but while men like Mr. Trench patronize its 
schools, we cannot regard it as the root of all evil ; 
and when men like Dr. M'Neile eulogize its effi- 
ciency, we cannot but regard it as the source of 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 239 

some good. Thousands of Roman Catholics, who 
but for it would now be sunk in hopeless darkness, 
are rejoicing in a substantial education. And why 
should these brethren seek to destroy a system 
which, though not all they could wish, confers such 
important benefits? If our countrymen won't have 
all the knowledge we desire, shall we therefore give 
them none? If they won't use the Bible at first 
sight, shall we prevent them from ever being able: to 
use it 1 If they won't instantly emerge from Roman 
bondage, shall we therefore put it out of their power 
ever to emerge/ On the plea of not violating our 
consciences, shall we thus act a part which requires 
the immolation of theirs, and, in the name of Prot- 
estantism, seek their conversion by such Popish 
compulsion ? And since we cannot conscientiously 
aid the Board in enlightening a country whose dark- 
ness is a disgrace to Christendom, must we not only 
hinder those who can, but impugn their motives and 
denounce their conduct 1 

Besides, what is meant by this cry of " godless 
knowledge ?" The sum of all knowledge is God and 
his works — is it this they call godless? — and under 
the plea of piety, are they guilty of profanity ? "All 
his works praise" and reflect Him : and if we do not 
see Him in every star and stream, the fault is not in 
the book but the student. On all are marked the 
footprints of the Creator ; and if learned men have 
been infidels, it is not because, but in spite of their 
pursuits. We protest, then, against this narrow- 



240 THE CURE. 

minded attempt to set the God of grace against the 
God of nature. It has been the fruitful source of 
the infidelity which is complained of: shunning sec- 
ular learning as an object of suspicion, we have left 
her in the hands of wicked men. and if they have 
sometimes perverted her testimony to their own bad 
ends, the fault has been ours for leaving her with 
them. Then we say — Flood Ireland with secular 
knowledge; better this than none. All kinds of 
light arc sisters, prismatic rays from the great Sun 
of truth, and, though differing in their hues, yet con- 
stituent parts of the same celestial element. Rome 
hates all kinds of knowledge; and this alone might 
teach those P-rotestants that all kinds are useful. 
She knows well that secular and religious light are 
as closely allied as civil and religious liberty, and 
that all these conspire to elevate and bless ; and it is 
deplorable that what Home sees so clearly. Protes- 
tant imbecility cannot see, or Protestant bigotry will 
not. They say they dread infidelity ! Should they 
not, therefore, dread Popery more than the Board — 
for what is infidelity but "an excrescence on the 
back of the Beast?" What produced the entire 
school of Voltaire .but this grand insult to the hu- 
man understanding? And why dread Infidelity 
more than Popery? Is not the former often the 
inquirer's first resting-place on his journey from 
Rome to Jerusalem? Infidels think — but Papists 
can only believe ; which state, suppose you. is the 
more hopeful one? And whether is Infidel France 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 241 



or Popish Spain this instant more accessible to the 
gospel missionary 1 But where is the monster brood 
of infidels which it was predicted this Board should 
bring forth ? Are not all wise men now beginning 
to admit that it is going to be a grand engine for 
the overthrow of Irish Popery ? — and the very best 
proof is Rome's anxiety to get rid of it. It has 
penetrated into her inmost camp, where the gospel 
missionary could not have followed. It has dived 
into her deepest dungeons : and, as it brings out her 
victims to the light, should not we stand at the door 
with the gospel to receive them? It is teaching 
them to read — let us be ready, when it has done so, 
to give them a Bible. It is springing the mine — 
let us stand prepared, when all is ready, to lay the 
train and put to the match. It is thus being over- 
ruled as a pioneer of the gospel, by Him who makes 
even the most imperfect plans of sinful men to sub- 
serve his glorious designs ; and let not us, the min- 
isters of that gospel, wrangle and split hairs, refus- 
ing to avail ourselves of the good it may do, because 
not clone in the mode we would approve : so shall 
we best prevent the infidelity we dread, and most 
effectually promote the Christianity we desire. 

But still more are we opposed to the sentiments 
of the opposite party, who would preach mere secu- 
lar knowledge as Ireland's gospel. It is a strange 
and ominous sign of these times, that from so many 
of oil]' seminaries where all other good books are ad- 
mitted, the best of books alone is excluded ; and that 

16 



242 THE CURE. 



in the circle of what is termed " useful knowledge," 
religious knowledge is never embraced. In the 
name of that Christianity which is man's best friend 
for both worlds, we solemnly protest against this. 
And is it thus you would propose to heal the com- 
plicated maladies of Ireland ? Have not learning 
and philosophy been already tried in various lands 
and in all ages, and what have they done to purify 
the social mass? Their utmost achievement has 
been to throw an external decency — or splendor, if 
you will — over the corruption, like the phosphor- 
escence of decay ; but what have they ever done to 
arrest the putrefaction itself? Look, ye idolaters 
of mere education, to Greece and Rome, and was it 
not when their learning had attained the loftiest 
point that their virtue had fallen the lowest ? Cor- 
ruption was sapping Rome amid the glories of the 
Augustan age ; and troops of philosophers filled the 
academy, while the degraded Athenians were selling 
their country to Philip. Or look, if you will, to modern 
France — France, which in knowledge stands next to 
England, and lacks nothing but virtue to steady and 
direct it. But, wanting this ballast, it is the abun- 
dance of her sails which is ever threatening to swamp 
her. Was it not her philosophers who brought on 
the first revolution ; and what was the " Reign of 
Terror," but the monster progeny of this unnatural 
wedlock of learning and wickedness ? 

We ask you then to enlighten our country, but 
we ask you still more to make her virtuous — to 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 243 

give her that knowledge which is power, but to give 
her also a conscience to guide it withal — to endow 
her with a " giant's strength" if you can, but also 
with such principles that she will not " use it like a 
giant." Is it by mere education you can do this ? 
You propose to elevate Ireland — what, then, is the 
task before you ? To give honesty to thieves, and 
truth to liars, and diligence to idlers, and energy to 
all — to banish perjury from our courts, robbery from 
our dwellings, and murder from our highways — to 
extinguish the fires of discontent, lay the demon of 
rebellion and set up the reign of peace — and thus 
to empty our jails and poorhouses, disband our 
soldiers and police, and bring back to our shores the 
tides of prosperity ! And are you serious in propos- 
ing to do this by an alphabet and spelling-books % 
Can you thus think to transform the schoolmaster's 
rod into an enchanter's wand ? No ; we want knowl- 
edge, it is true, but we want virtue more ; and till 
we get this, even your boasted knowledge can confer 
but half its benefits. Without this, you may enlarge 
your jails, they will continue to fill them ; and mul- 
tiply your police, they will elude or defy them ; and 
increase your tribunals, they will outswear or outface 
them ; and enact new laws, they will break or evade 
them. Their chief disease is in the heart. It is 
vain to confine your treatment to the head. Hence 
it is not literature but "righteousness which will 
exalt our nation," — not the Pierian spring, but the 



244 THE CURE. 



"fountain of living waters," that can remove those 
corruptions which cause its decay. 

But even suppose our whole reasoning false, and 
that schools could do more than their fondest admirers 
ever fancied in their dreams, can you educate Ire- 
land so long as Rome reigns over \il Will a church 
whose empire is darkness thus give you peaceable 
possession of one of her tfest-guarded provinces — a 
church whose history is light read backwards — which 
wherever it has the power, either arrests all knowl- 
edge or perverts it to her own worst purposes ; and 
which has been lately teaching the most obtuse 
amongst ourselves, that the real fault of our colleges 
is not their " godlessness," but their existence, and 
that all her struggles for liberty to teach in her own 
way, mean liberty not to teach at all ? It is the 
veriest folly, then, to talk even of educating the Irish 
Papist, unless you can destroy Irish Popery ; of il- 
lumining Ireland unless 3^011 dissipate the Lethean 
fog with which it has enveloped her ; or of enlight- 
ening her people while immured in the vast cavern 
of Popery, — with sentinel priests so blocking up its 
mouth as to hinder either the escape of a prisoner or 
the entrance of a ray ? 

The Industrial. — Industrial training is fast be- 
coming the favorite remedy. The rush of our empi- 
rics has of late been from the parliament to the 
plough ; and even from-the school-book to the sewed 
muslin manufacture. Addressing our people thus, 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 245 



they say, — You are the cause of your own miseries, 
your existence is artificial, and your lives are a fic- 
tion — your tradesmen's sons are gentlemen, and your 
farmers' daughters ladies ; — there must be an end to 
this : your young gentlemen must doff the sporting 
jacket, and don the farmer's frieze, and turn aside 
from their hounds to follow the plough ; your young 
ladies must lay down their embroidery and take up 
the keys, and transfer themselves with all speed from 
the parlor to the kitchen. In short, you must alter 
your entire mode of life — you must go clown into the 
bowels of the earth, and bring up its minerals — ■ 
spread yourselves over your bogs, and form peat 
companies — go out upon the seas, and catch the cod 
and herrings — build ships, and circumnavigate the 
globe ; — in a word, turn Ireland into a workshop as 
we have turned Britain, and then your country's mil- 
lennium shall have dawned ! Here is their proposal ; 
and to show that they are no visionaries, they would 
have schools in every parish for agriculture, industry, 
and trades of all kinds ; aided, of course, by ade- 
quate grants, and superintended by competent man- 
agers. 

An exquisite dream this ! — we have dreamed it our- 
selves. Yet we do not mean that it is all a dream. 
Doubtless by enormous cost, prodigious trouble, and 
ceaseless care, much could in this way be done for 
Ireland ; and we therefore rejoice in every such 
movement. We are thankful to those who would 
dress one ulcer of our diseased country, even though 



246 THE CURE. 



they leave untouched the Malady which has caused 
it. But, alas ! such external applications can give 
little relief. And while you are healing one erup- 
tion, the rankling disease within is throwing out 
others around it. We are so far agreed, that if you 
would reclaim Ireland, you must first reclaim the 
Irish ; that if you would develop the country's re- 
sources, you must develop the people's energies ; — 
and that any scheme which aims not at this, inverts 
the order of things, and begins at the wrong end. 
But you make no provision in your plan for what 
we have proved to be Ireland's chief 'want. You have 
given her the head and the hands, it is true, but you 
have not given her the heart and conscience. Her 
people want honesty, energy, steadiness, perse- 
verance. Is it by lessons on embroidery and farm- 
ing you propose to implant these principles 1 Yet 
without them, of what ultimate avail is anything 
you can do % You may build factories — perhaps 
your own workmen will burn them ; and establish 
trades — your own journeymen may combine against 
you ; and make what improvements you may — it is 
too likely your clerks will deceive you, your custom- 
ers rob you, your servants take advantage of you 
whenever they can : and after years of the most 
anxious toil, you will too probably find that your 
best plans have been frustrated, and your money put 
into a " bag with holes," and be compelled to retire 
in disgust from the scene ! You think this too 
gloomy a prediction ? Alas ! it is not prophecy at 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 247 

all — it is well-known history. What else has been 
the fate of most of the philanthropic schemes of which 
Ireland has already been the scene ? Who does not 
know that in our present state, the best men come 
here only to peril their fortunes, and their most gen- 
erous efforts are often turned into evils ? Those 
who give are forgotten — those who lend are not al- 
ways repaid — those who trust are imposed on — and 
those who confide their capital to Irish hands, often 
find it squandered in rash speculation or fraudulent 
jobs. And why 1 — because Popery and prosperity 
are elements as incompatible as fire and water. For 
apart altogether from the direct intermeddling of the 
priest, whose favor you cannot expect but at the price 
of truckling subserviency, and whose endless annoy- 
ances you cannot prevent, so long as the people you 
operate on are his slaves, and know of no other crim- 
inality but that of displeasing him — apart, we say, 
from this altogether, you will find yourselves in the 
midst of a deluge of depravity, contending against 
the most hopeless odds ; and even when you think 
you have found some standing ground, it will most 
probably turn out to be a shaking bog or a trembling 
quicksand. 

We say, then, to our industrial economists, your 
scheme, too, is radically defective. You may teach 
the people industry, will they practise it 1 You may 
invoke its spirit, will it come at your call 1 You 
may bring railways to every town, and canals 
through every parish, and reclaim our bogs, and 



248 THE CURE. 



deepen our rivers, and drain our whole country to 
its mountain tops, will this implant those great 
moral principles on which the value and permanence 
of all such improvements depend 1 You have given 
the machinery, it is true, but where is the moving 
power 1 And you have your choice either to con- 
tinue working it yourselves, or see it stop and go to 
ruin as soon as you withdraw. And at the very ut- 
most you can only by such means make Ireland like 
one of your large Asylums, with its grounds beauti- 
fully laid out, and its inmates working here and 
there ; but all superintended by other hands, and 
supported by general charity. No ; Ireland wants 
something that mere industry cannot supply, ay, and 
without which it cannot exist. We are thankful for 
your well-meant exertions, but they can only palli- 
ate, they cannot cure. And oh ! how often have we 
looked with sorrowful interest on those schemes of 
mere worldly benevolence which are now going for- 
ward here and there through our country, and 
mourned to think that, for want of that moral ele- 
ment which alone can give them permanence, they 
must sooner or later come to naught ! And we 
have been reminded the while of the child's frail 
embankments on the sandy shore, which are doomed 
to vanish before the flowing tide ! 

The Scriptural. — It is truly mournful to be 
obliged to prove that God's remedy for Ireland is 
the best : — in this nineteenth century, the brightest 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 249 

era of the gospel's triumphs — and in this United 
Kingdom, the richest storehouse of its trophies — to 
have to go over the argument anew, as if Paul were 
only setting out on his first journey. Nor can we 
imagine a more humiliating fact, than that Britain 
owns not a few statesmen, and philanthropists, too, 
win), while they call" themselves Christians, seem to 
think a people's religion has as little to do with their 
prosperity as the color of their hair ; nay. who speak 
of the gospel as though it were some superior kind 
of superstition, fitted for weak but not for manly 
minds, or at best some n^stie thing designed for 
the dying rather than for the living, and suited to 
the cloister, but unfitted for the world ; and who 
even smile at the (< bigot" who would assert that 
God knows best what " exalts a nation," and retail 
with baptized lips those sneers at the " foolishness 
of preaching," which used to be confined to heathen 
cynics ! 

At a late meeting of poor-law guardians in Con- 
nauo'ht. a Roman Catholic member of the board 
boldly declared his belief — of course, amid cries of 
"order" from the priests and their minions — that 
the Bible was the secret of Ulster's prosperity, and 
that nothing else would elevate the other provinces. 
What an affecting circumstance ! Was the poor 
man led to make this remark by some such instinct 
as guides other creatures to select the aliment which 
suits them best ; or merely by the feeling which 
prompts the blind man wishfully to turn his dark 



250 THE CURE. 



eyeballs to the sun when he hears all nature around 
him rejoicing in his morning beams 1 

We have already demonstrated that to nothing 
else than the Bible can Ulster owe its vast superior- 
ity. The subjoined tables show that nearly five 
sixths of all Ireland's Bible and Sunday-school in- 
struction are confined to that single province.* Ac- 
cording, therefore, to those priestly blasphemers who 
pronounce the Bible the " gospel of the devil,"f Con- 
naught should be a paradise and Ulster a pandemo- 
nium : and what must be the effrontery, to say noth- 
ing of the wickedness, of the men who, though per- 
fectly aware that the reverse is nearer the truth, rave 
on against this volume as they have never raved 
against " The Age of Reason ?" We are told, it is 
true, with an air of triumph, that many Protestants 
are as bad as Roman Catholics. We admit the fact, 

* Sunday-School Society for Ireland. 1851. 



Number Number Number of gratuitous 


Provinces. of schools. of scholars. 


teachers. 


Ulster, . . 1931 . . . 164635 . . . 


14151 


Leinster, . 457 . . . 32314 . . . 


3006 


Munster, . 400 .. . 17160 . . . 


1774 


Connaught,. 216 .. . 12403 . . . 


822 


Hibernian Bible Society, 1851. 




Bibles, Testaments, and Portions. 




Sales. Grants. 


Total. 


Ulster, . . 1424 . . . 15408 . . . 


16832 


Leinster, . 224 . . . 2911 . . . 


3135 


Munster, . 160 .. . 930 .. . 


1090 


Connaught,. 186 .. . 3667 . . . 


3853 


f Encyclical Letter of Leo XII., 1824 





THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 251 

but are they Bible-loving Protestants? This is the 
point, for Rome's quarrei is with the Bible, and 
''the Bible is the religion or Protestants." If 
these godless Protestants are Bible readers y a,nd our 
godly ones Bible haters, then will we admit the force 
of the objection ; for the grand point in dispute is, 
Does the free circulation of the Scriptures do good 
or harm ? But if, as is perfectly notorious, our god- 
less Protestants are as innocent of the crime of Bible 
reading as any priest could wish them ; if their reli- 
gion is that mere formalism which is essential Popery 
beneath whatever name ; if the virtue of every per- 
son is just as his love to the Bible ; and finally, if 
that parish is always the most virtuous which has 
been longest blessed with a Bible-loving ministry, 
and that always the least so which has been longest 
cursed with Bible-neglecting hirelings ; — then is this 
objection the strongest corroboration of our ivhole 
argument. For it proves that such godlessness is 
owing, not to the Bible, but to the ivamt of it, and 
therefore not to the presence but to the absence of 
true Protestantism. And it effectually confirms 
our position, that where Popery is most intense there 
is the deepest degradation, and where Protestantism 
is most pure there is the highest elevation ; and, 
therefore, that when Papists are bad, it is because of 
their system, and when Protestants are bad. it is in 
spite of theirs. We will now add, that the godless 
Protestantism which is complained of is owing much 
to the corrupting atmosphere of Popery, and the 



252 THE CURE. 



u virtuous Popery" which is gloried in, to the anti- 
septic power of Protestantism ; for is it not noto- 
rious that our worst Protestants are generally found 
in the most Popish districts, arid our best Roman 
Catholics in the most Protestant? What different 
things are the Roman Catholics, ay, and the Prot- 
estants, too, of Ulster and of Connaught respective- 
ly ! For in the one province grows a moral upas- 
tree, and even Protestants suffer by its deadly emana- 
tions ; in the other grows the tree of life, and even 
Roman Catholics, who will not taste its fruit, are 
the better for dwelling beneath its shade. Here is 
the solution, and there can be no other. You have 
in our country two atmospheres, a pestilent and a 
pure one. generated by the Breviary and the Bible 
respectively, and commingled in different proportions 
in our various provinces. The pestilent predomi- 
nates as you go south and west, and the pure as you 
come north : and the moral health of all denomina- 
tions is affected in exact proportion to the quantity 
they breathe of each. 

Yet ignorant depravity asks to this hour, What 
has the Bible to do with Ireland's elevation ? How 
can any man read it, and doubt that the only thing 
necessary to make the whole earth a paradise is just 
to follow its instructions? How could men, for 
example, obey the golden rule, and " do to others as 
the} 7 would have others do to them ;" or the two 
great commandments, and " love G-od supremely, 
and their neighbors as themselves," without bring- 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 253 

ing back the innocence of Eden? Will any man 
hazard his character for sanity by venturing to deny 
this ? Why, our most florid conceptions of the change 
which would follow the universal reign of such prin- 
ciples, are meagreness itself. Is it not perfectly 
obvious, that beneath their sway every demon of 
vice and crime must fly back to the pit whence he 
came : and that in the atmosphere they would create, 
man would attain his loftiest moral stature, his stunt- 
ed mind its largest growth, his shrivelled heart its 
divinest expansion, and therefore his earthly habita- 
tion its highest pitch of improvement ? Yet the 
Bible has nothing to do with a nation's greatness J ! 
Had it ever once failed to elevate, or had mere 
worldly expedients ever succeeded without it, then 
might there be some excuse for this stolid skep- 
ticism. But what have the best schemes of mere 
philosophy; philanthropy, or political economy ever 
yet done to stay the crimes or tears of mankind? 
Why, human wickedness has laughed to scorn, and 
human woe has only been mocked by such paltry 
expedients. While men have been wrangling about 
their measures, whose only good provisions, if any 
such they contained, were borrowed or pilfered from 
the Bible, that book has in reality been maintaining 
the chief struggle with the world's corruptions, and 
diffusing those principles which, just as they pre- 
vail, supersede the necessity of laws, and without 
which mere statutes could no more control the 



254 THE CURE. 



agents of crime, than fetters and chains would bind 
the demoniac ! 

We make our proud appeal to facts. A few 
illiterate fishermen go forth from the banks of Jor- 
dan on an errand so seemingly wild, that men knew 
not whether most to pity their Ci insanity," or punish 
their ' : presumption." Yet somehow, by their story 
of " one Jesus," the most colossal fabrics of idolatry 
were strewn in fragments, the thrones of monarchs 
trembled, and the world was revolutionized ! 

A solitary monk once disentombed a Bible from 
the sepulchre to which Rome had so long consigned 
it ; and, as at the resurrection of its divine Author, 
its " keepers became as dead men ;" the " Triple 
Tyrant" trembled on the banks of the distant 
Tiber ; his mighty fabric of superstition was crack- 
ed and riven as though struck by the bolts which 
shattered Babel ; and Europe looked out as from a 
new creation ! Or look, ye moral reformers, to that 
uproarious village, remarkable for nothing but its 
vice and misery ! You have exhausted your nos- 
trums on it, and how much have you done ? Stand 
aside, then, and make way for that unlettered itiner- 
ant, whom some call an enthusiast, and others a 
fanatic, — a man who knows no language but his own, 
nor scheme of reform but that of salvation, in whom 
the love of Christ and souls supplies the learning 
of Greece and Rome, and England too ! Observe 
how lie goes to work, for it is worth your notice. 
His sole weapon, a Bible ; his chief agency, schools 



THE MEDICINE THE POPULAR REMEDIES. 255 



and prayer-meetings ; his church, a barn ; his audi- 
tors, rude villagers ; perhaps his only orders, " the 
love of Christ constraineth me ;" and his manner, 
possibly such as to shock the slave of frigid canon- 
ical decorum. Yet that man in time transforms 
that village ! — the tavern is exchanged for the house 
of God, the bacchanal song for the evening hymn ; 
and should you pass through its quiet streets, as the 
summer evening sunbeams linger on the neighboring 
hills, you could scarce help exclaiming, What en- 
chanter has been here ? Do you still hesitate to 
believe that the Bible did all this, and give most 
of the glory to your civilized institutions? Then 
behold that band of missionaries ploughing their 
trackless way to some distant cannibal island, 
and see how in time one and another of those 
wild savages, whom nothing else could tame, un- 
dergoes the most complete transformation ! But 
why need we proceed 1 What has any land ever 
been but a field of blood and crime till the Bible 
has dispelled the sulphurous clouds with which hell 
had shrouded it, roused its people from the Lethean 
slumbers in which Satan had bound them, cleared 
its moral soil of a thousand poisonous weeds, and 
sowed instead the seeds of numberless improve- 
ments? And hence, where but in Bible lands will 
you find arts flourishing in fullest bloom, science 
shedding its purest rays, or benevolence dispensing 
its divinest blessings? Or what else has made 
Britain the queen of nations, and the theatre of 



256 THE CURE. 



wonders, with her thousand trees of life and liberty 
waving in the breeze and spreading to the sun? 
Yes, compared with the Bible as a mere civilizcr, 
how contemptible the best schemes of statesman- 
ship ! for they can only repress the crimes which it 
eradicates, and punish the atrocities it wholly pre- 
vents. And what proves its marrelloiis power is, 
that even where it does not convert, it at least 
moralizes and restrains ; where it does not give 
life to the dead mass, it at least retards its putre- 
faction ; where it does not clothe the moral waste 
with verdure, it at least warms its atmosphere, and 
lessens its dreariness ; — insomuch that each sanctu- 
ary it rears has ever proved like the light-house on 
the ocean's verge, which not only gives light to its 
own attendants, but sends its struggling rays far out 
over the gloomy wave ! 

Such is the fact ;. and here we might rest and leave 
our Christian philosophers to sneer on in their piti- 
able blindness at Grod's glorious plan " for the heal- 
ing of the nations." But we shall now meet them on 
their own ground, and demonstrate the matchless wis- 
dom and power of the gospel as an engine of social 
elevation ; and prove that before it all other reme- 
dies for Ireland, or any other land, must hide their 
diminished heads in despicable insignificance, and 
facie as the stars before the rising sun ; and that in 
reality it were as rational to commence a new 
search for the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of life, 
as to expect any other cure for our country's maladies 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 257 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 

Doubtless one cause of the unbelief above re- 
ferred to is, that men do not see the reasons of the 
Cross, or never think it has reasons ; but deem it 
some sort of magical thing which saves because God 
has appointed it to save, but in which there is no 
more connection between the disease and the remedy, 
than between the Rod and the Red Sea. What 
amazing ignorance ! to suppose that God, whose 
matchless contrivances and adaptations pervade ev- 
erything else, excludes them here, where they are 
most perfect ! Dear reader, it is impossible, in a 
few brief pages, to give full drawings of a plan so 
glorious — to conduct you through all the chambers 
of a structure so magnificent. We can only intro- 
duce you to the porch of this glorious temple, give 
you a mere glimpse of the interior, and then leave 
you to pursue your discoveries for yourself. Be 
good enough, then, to refer to our first principles, in 
page 109; and as we have found how Popery sets 
them all at defiance let us now see how perfectly 
the gospel embodies and develops them. We have 
found that love to God and our neighbor is the sum 
of the decalogue, and therefore of all virtue. We 
shall now briefly prove that every form of personal 
and social happiness springs from this twofold com- 

\1 



258 THE CURE. 



mand, just as branches issue from their stem, — that 
on this simple and glorious pedestal, the moral uni- 
verse stands, and that it can rest upon no other. 

The Philosophy. — I. Love to God and each 
other is the sure source, and the only one of endlessly 
increasing virtue and happiness amongst all rational 
creatures. There are but two kinds of government 
under which God could have placed the universe — 
the reign of fear and the reign of love, and it is only 
the latter which can secure these results. 

1. Love alone can secure virtue — and it does so 
most perfectly. What without it may be done from 
a cold sense of duty, and is therefore some day but 
too likely to be neglected, we are in no danger of 
overlooking, so long as love strongly impels us. 
Could I wrong a beloved brother, or disobey a parent 
dear as my own soul? Therefore, if God would 
have every duty to himself and to our neighbor ob- 
served, he has only to inspire love to himself and 
our neighbor, — mid it is done. 

2. Love alone can secure happiness — and it does 
so most perfectly. What even in this cold world is 
our source of purest enjoyment? Is it the acquisi- 
tion of earth's richest spoils, or the bliss of loving 
and being loved — our " house full of silver and gold." 
or full of domestic affection — our hearts throbbing 
to the voice even of flattering fame, or the far sweeter 
tones of one too fond and faithful to flatter? So 
freely does the heart resign itself to the potent spell 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 259 



of this delightful affection, that not only have poets 
sung, and even sages felt its charms, but the deepest 
depravity seems scarce able wholly to dispel them ; 
and men have smiled over their infant's cradle, and 
wept over their mother's grave, long after they have 
ceased to weep or smile over any other spot on earth. 
Therefore, if Grod would make his universe happy. 
He has only to fill it with love, — and it is done. 

3. Love alone provides for the endless increase of 
virtue and happiness, and it does so most perfectly. 
Mark, first, the necessary effect of love to God. 
That blessed Being centres in himself infinitely more 
goodness than is distributed to all his creatures. It 
is therefore most obvious, that the more they know 
and experience his goodness, the more they must 
love Him, and the more must their virtue and hap- 
piness increase, of course. Observe, next, the effect 
of love to each other ; it would naturally exhibit 
itself in a thousand acts of mutual kindness — these, 
reciprocated, would call forth renewed acts of affec- 
tion, until it would become a conflict with all which 
could do the other most good. Now, you have only 
to imagine myriads of creatures the subjects of such 
constant and increasing love, and employed in all 
those schemes of amelioration, which, as their end- 
lessly growing knowledge would enable, so their 
endlessly growing love would prompt them to devise ; 
and you have at once get agoing a train of influences 
which in their manifold forms and combinations 
must produce an amount of bliss and advancement 



260 THE CURE. 



which baffles all conception. Such, then, is the 
glorious platform on which Grod has reared his uni- 
verse. And such was man's condition before the 
fall. His soul the seat of angelic love, was the seat 
also of angelic virtue and happiness, and contained 
the germ of angelic improvement. 

II. Love to God and each other is peculiarly ne- 
cessary to the virtue and happiness of the human 
race. We have hearts — and to be happy, must love 
some object. We have minds — and that object 
must be capable of engaging them. We are spirits. 
and immortal — that object must therefore be im- 
mortal and spiritual. Our minds and hearts are 
formed for endless growth — that object must be 
capable of satisfying these endlessly increasing de- 
mands upon it. While it must be able to supply all 
our ivants, as well as suit all our capacities. We 
are weak — it must be able to impart strength ; and 
changing — it must never change ; in short, it must 
be an object independent of all vicissitudes, and 
adapted to all times, places, and circumstances. 
Finally, as we are many, dwelling together, aiad re- 
quired to love each other, it must be such an object 
that each can have enough without diminishing the 
supplies of the rest, else you introduce a fatal ele- 
ment of discord amongst us : and if, instead of thus 
endangering, you would ensure our mutual concord, 
it must be such an object, that in giving of it en- 
riches even the giver himself. Now, all these re- 
quisites are found in Gtod alone. He is a spirit — 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 261 

immortal, immutable, almighty, all-wise, containing 
in himself such boundless excellence as must enrap- 
ture the mind and rivet the heart, no matter how 
inconceivably expanded they may become. And our 
possessions of love to Him — that truest wealth, in- 
stead of diminishing, increase the stores of others. 
We have only to tell them of His goodness in order 
to increase their love, and by a blessed reaction to 
increase our own ! 

III. The violation of this law of love must con- 
sequently entail on the human race endlessly in- 
creasing sin and misery. Alas ! man has made 
the fearful experiment, and what have been the 
results? Formed to find happiness only in God, 
we have, by transferring our affections to earthly 
objects, crossed the laws of our being at a thousand 
points ; and the necessary consequence has been 
individual misery and social disorder. Being 
spirits, no amount of earthly things can satisfy us. 
With minds and hearts craving after endless expan- 
sion, these cravings are disappointed, and we are 
thrown back upon ourselves. And setting our affec- 
tions on objects, -which even, if otherwise satisfying, 
change and decay, we ensure our wretchedness be- 
yond the possibility of escape. Our laurels wither 
on our brow — our friends die in our embrace — our 
sweetest pleasures pall the soonest — our costliest 
treasures are often the first to perish ; and as a fit 
conclusion to a conflict so unequal with the laws of 
G-od and of our own being, at length comes death to 



262 THE CURE. 

strip us of whatever may have yet escaped the wreck 
of changing life. Then the inordinate love of such 
objects ensures social disorder ; for the more wealth 
and power one enjoys, the less remains for others. 
There could scarce be a dozen of Napoleons, nor a 
hundred Rothschilds on earth ; and even if there 
could, the dozen would enslave, and the hundred 
would beggar the world. Now, does not this shed 
a sunbeam of light on the cause of every nation's 
miseries? It is just the inordinate love of such 
objects as riches, honors, and pleasures, with the 
violence and wrong it produces, which has drenched 
the world with tears and blood. And you have 
only to recollect that this is the exact condition of 
our wretched country, to explain in an instant its 
crimes and miseries. 

IV. It follows unavoidably from the foregoing 
propositions, that the only possible way effectu- 
ally to restore virtue and happiness to any country, 
is therein to restore love to its ancient sway. Now, 
this is simply the object of the glorious gospel. We 
have demonstrated that the law of love must secure 
individual and social virtue, happiness, and pros- 
perity; and that its violation must entail equally 
extensive crime, misery, and desolation. It follows, 
therefore, that until it is restored to the hearts of 
men, these evils must continue ; and all the efforts 
of statesmen and philanthropists can without this, 

But <; skin and film the ulcerous part, 
While rank corruption, mining all within, 
Infects unseen." 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 263 

Now, it is this restoration which the gospel effects, 
and HENCE its matchless power, as a remedy for 
national maladies. But in order to this restoration, 
two things are indispensable. 

1. God's laws being infinitely perfect, their viola- 
tion must be an infinite crime, and therefore demand- 
ing an infinite punishment. Of course, for God to 
let such crime pass unpunished, were not only to 
invite rebellion and overturn his throne, but to for- 
feit all claim to the character of justice and truth. 
Not even an earthly sovereign could permit his laws 
to be trampled on without bringing contempt on 
himself and anarchy on the country ; and for God 
to do so, were to destroy his character, and with it 
the confidence, and therefore the fove, and hence the 
virtue and happiness of his entire creation. So that 
the pardon of the rebellious part of his dominions 
(perhaps a very small part), could only be effected 
by destroying the whole and blasting his own per- 
fections. But how could a sinner bear such a pun- 
ishment? It is clearly impossible. God must pro- 
vide some one who can bear it, or we are undone.* 
Indeed, so utterly unable are we to make any repa- 
ration for our sins, that if God could accept one 
hour's obedience as atonement for a whole life's dis- 
obedience, we have it not to give — not only because 
our supreme love to God being due every hour upon 
its own account, one hour's intermission of it can 

* Acts iv. 12 ; Rom. III. 23-28 ; Gal. III. 10-14. 



264 THE CURE. 



never be overtaken, but because no mere sinner 
loves God at all even for a single moment* 

2. Suppose such an atonement made, then our 
hearts must by some divine agency be restored to 
the dominion of that law of love in which virtue 
and happiness alone are found. Without this, even 
a\ atonement would be vain. While our hearts 
are placed on earthly things, mere pardon could not 
make us either virtuous or happy. But let heaven- 
ly affections only displace the earthly — let the heart, 
from being torn with restless passions, become the 
serene seat of ethereal purity and angelic love, aud 
you sow once moke the seeds of endlessly increasing 
individual and social virtue, happiness, and improve- 
ment. 

Now, is it not self-evident, that did the above 
principle of love universally prevail, the earth would 
return to its Eden innocence, and therefore resume 
its Eden loveliness? — and that the degree in which 
it does prevail in any country, must indicate the de- 
gree of that country's happiness and prosperity ? 
It must be so, if we can trust our reason. It is so, 
if we can trust our experience. For thousands can 
testify that this love to God and man is no mere 
dream of enthusiasm ; and millions who think so 
still must own, that to such enthusiasm the world 
owes its best blessings. To be plain — this is Chris- 
tianity if the Bible is true, and must be if God is 
perfect. That blessed religion tells us, that love is 
* Rom. viii. 7 ; James iv. 4. 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 265 

the grand law of the moral universe, whose obedi- 
ence secures perfect virtue and happiness ; that man 
has violated this law, and hence the crimes and mis- 
eries which desolate his abode ; and that the grand 
object of the gospel is to restore in his heart the do- 
minion of this law as the onlv way to restore virtue 
and happiness. That in order to this, the blessed 
Saviour died to atone for his sins,* and the Divine 
Spirit is sent to turn him from his sins ;f and that 
through the work of both, and that alone, we are de- 
livered from sin's punishment and power £ if we only 
repent and believe on Jesus ;§ and that by this di- 
vine agency that great inward change commences, 
which, just as it goes on, restores more perfectly the 
sway of that law of love, whose observance or breach 
insures all good or evil. 

Such, then, is a very meagre sketch of this match- 
less plan, and that we had space left to show the 
equal wisdom of the mode of its application ! — to 
show that in all respects -there is as perfect an adap- 
tation between the cross of Jesus and the heart of 
man. as between the light of heaven and the eye it 
enters. But we have only time to state the fact. 
Like some medicine which is so compounded as to 
act on every organ at once, He who has made the 
heart of man has made his blessed gospel to touch 
every chord of it, wake an echo through every cham- 

* Rom. iii. 24 ; iv. 25. f John iii. 5 ; 1 Thess. v. 23. 

t Eph. ii. 8, 9 ; Titus iii. 5, 6. 

§ Mark i. 15 ; Acts iii. 19 ; xxii. 31. 



266 THE CURE. 



ber of it, grasp every power and rouse every feeling 
of it ; — and this so universally, that Chalmers in Scot- 
land, and Walker in England, and the Moravians in 
Greenland, all declare that whereas other schemes 
of amelioration they tried but in vain, they no soon- 
er preached salvation to the sinner through Jesus' 
blood, than this waked emotions which had slept till 
then, and one and another was melted and changed. 
And this has been the experience of all Christian 
men — that the gospel is the true and only catholicon ; 
that as the magnet attracts every particle of iron, 
however different its shape, or size, or place of con- 
cealment, so is there a something in Jesus which, 
when he is lifted up, draws all men unto him ; and 
that as the breeze of heaven wakes the melody of a 
thousand Eolian harps, how different soever their 
form and tone, whose music sleeps until swept by it, 
so the story of Christ's amazing love wakes, in 
breasts of the most diverse characters, responses 
which nothing else could stir ! 

And thus appears clear as heaven's sunshine the 
secret of the gospel's amazing power on the nations. 
Love is just to the moral universe what Attraction 
is to the material ; and were that great law suspend- 
ed which preserves the planets in their orbits, it 
were not more absurd to propose to remedy the con- 
sequent disorder without restoring its dominion, than 
to talk of re-establishing true happiness on earth 
without restoring the love which alone can produce 
it. Now, is it not surprising that in days when such 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 267 



homage is done to physical science there should be 
such forgetfulness of moral science : that men who 
can eloquently describe how the mote in the sun- 
beam is governed in its wanderings by unchanging 
laws, seem as if they thought the immortal spirit 
subject to no laws whatever ; and that while in obe- 
dience to the former men plough the ocean, rear the 
engine, and make the elements their ministering ser- 
vants, they act as though the latter could be disre- 
garded with perfect impunity ! Propose to endow the 
Ptolemaic system of astronomy, because 80,000,000 
of our heathen fellow-subjects believe it; and the idea 
would be pronounced insane, and the man who would 
entertain it fit only for a bedlam, for thus attempt- 
ing to turn back the world on its onward march. 
But a Ptolemaic system of religion prevails amongst 
us, yet it is smiled on and pensioned ; its disasters 
begin to be felt, and, by way of cure, the smiles are 
multiplied and the pension is increased ; tens of thou- 
sands are voted to a college to teach it, and then 
hundreds of thousands for a force to keep down the 
evils it creates ; and thus the ruin goes on, till the 
country's dissolution draws nigh, and statesmen are 
at their wit's end ; and all because, despite every 
warning, they will continue to set at defiance eternal 
laws, as fixed and immutable as those which guide 
the stars in their courses. Nay, some of them will 
tell you that a country's religion is its merest acci- 
dent, and not worth a statesman's thoughts, unless 
when it becomes necessary to humor the people's 



268 THE CURE. 



prejudices ! And hence the ignorant cant to which 
we are so often doomed to listen, which pronounces 
it true liberality to regard all religions alike, and 
weak-minded bigotry to recommend heaven's own 
statute-book as Ireland's remedy ! Bigotry, for- 
sooth ! to say that those laws by which the universe 
is governed should form the basis of earthly legisla- 
tion ! And enlightenment, forsooth ! to scout those 
eternal principles with which even the supreme Gov- 
ernor could not dispense without turning his fair 
dominions into chaos ! 

The Fruits. — Such is the philosophy of the glori- 
ous gospel, and we can now only take a mere glimpse 
of its fruits. And, for the sake of more perfect 
conclusiveness, we shall follow the order observed 
while tracing the baleful influence of Popery, — and 
show the benign effects of the gospel in awakening 
the mind, purifying the conscience, warming the 
heart, elevating the ivhole nature, and so blessing 
for time, and fitting for eternity. 

1. The gospel awakens t/ie mind. — If superstition, 
its w^healthy state, paralyzes it, true religion, its 
healthy state, must proportionally invigorate it. 
Besides, the Christian 1 * mind is constantly exer- 
cised on themes inconceivably grand, and above all 
others calculated to promote its growth and vitality. 
Hence his usually intelligent countenance, so re- 
markably contrasting with the superstitious devo- 
tee's contracted brow. Who can daily study a 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 269 



book which contains all that most concerns the 
Creator and creation, and is the very synopsis of 
the laws and principles of the universe, without 
finding in it the most nourishing food and powerful 
stimulus to the mind 1 Talk of your philosophy in 
comparison ! Your men of science dabble in the 
streamlets of knowledge, — this leads you to the 
great Fountainhead. Now, only contrast the mere 
effect on the immortal mind during a long lifetime 
of such ambrosial food, with that of the senseless 
trash of Popish legends ; and if even the insect 
takes the hue of the leaf it feeds on, what must be 
the influence of such mental diet on the Protestant 
and the Papist respectively 1 Just what you see in 
Ireland. If the mind of the Clare peasant had 
been nourished on the Bible, would he have fled in 
terror at the priest's threat to turn him " into a 
goose or a turkey-cock ?" and were it universally 
read amongst us, where would be our holy wells, 
and the thousand other schemes of priestcraft to 
filch the cash from the pocket of credulity? The 
effect would be just the reverse of what we have 
found that of Popery to be. The Papist's mind 
mesmerized, and the Protestant's stimulated at the 
altar on the Sabbath, each feels the effect through- 
out the week. The one paralyzed and the other 
quickened, in reference to their eternal concerns, you 
see the respective influences on all their temporal. 
In the one case, the whole process cramps and 
deadens ; in the other, it quickens and expands. 



270 THE CURE. 

And this at once explains how art, and science, and 
every improvement are as common in gospel lands 
as they are rare in Popish. Nor mnst we forget the 
enormous contributions which the Bible has directly 
given to learning and philosophy. For how many 
of the worshippers of science have adorned their 
idol with laurels stolen from it ; how many of our 
poets have gathered their richest gems in its mines ; 
how many of our infidels have taken their only good • 
thoughts from its pages ; and thus resembled the 
pirate who would rob the ship of her treasures, and 
then try to scuttle and sink her ! And hence it was 
that the immortal Newton could step from the study 
of the stars to that of his Bible, and feel no change 
except from high to higher pursuits. 

2. The gospel purifies the conscience. — Yes ; and 
it alone can do so. If vice could have ever been 
charmed out of its propensities by the magic spell 
of eloquence, or crime arrested by the lightning of 
genius, or the sinner induced by witching persuasion 
to go and sin no more, it would surely have been by 
the enchanting powers of the illustrious Chalmers. 
Yet, as we have found, even he could not moralize 
until he had first evangelized. And is there any 
miracle in this 1 How can that man wrong his 
neighbor who ever sees the eye of God above him, 
and a yawning hell beneath him ; who knows that 
every sin deserves eternal wrath, and is impelled to 
every duty by all the sanctions which can be drawn 
from time and eternity ? Is it not perfectly obvious, 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC 271 



that beneath the sway of such a religion no treachery 
could wear the mask of friendship, nor heartless stoi- 
cism personate humanity, nor midnight assassin lurk 
behind the hedge, nor villain escape under forms of 
law ? Is it not manifest, that beneath its breath 
party influence must expire, that before its glance 
corruption must flee appalled, that at its voice neg- 
lected worth would emerge from the shade, and 
merit become the only road to honor, and that un- 
der its sway " nothing would be found to hurt or de- 
stroy ?" Oh ! did such a religion only sit by the 
monarch on his throne, and the merchant at his desk, 
and become the presiding genius of every family, the 
companion of every closet, and the inmate of every 
heart, how soon would the earth look out from her 
mantle of woe, with her pristine smile of paradisaic 
joy ! In view of a system so divine, the prophet's 
most glowing pictures of the millennium are stripped 
of their poetry and transformed into sober prose. 
If it only prevailed in Ireland, where would be her 
crime and criminals ? Yet men, who have tried all 
other remedies upon her, and only to have their fail- 
ure recorded in the already copious records of their 
blundering and shame, will scarce listen gravely 
when we suggest this divine specific for her maladies, 
but will pension and smile on that antagonist sys- 
tem which has ruined her ! 

3. The gospel gives a, Jieart ; and here is its chief 
glory. Before its benign smiles, chains and fetters, 
racks and thumbscrews vanish. It has penetrated 



272 THE CURE. 



the criminal's cell, relaxed bis chains and washed his 
stripes ; it has reared its asylums, and filled them 
with the poor and the maimed, the halt and the 
blind ; it has rolled the tides of eloquence on behalf 
of distress, until the heart of stoicism has melted, 
the hand of avarice has relaxed, luxury has dealt its 
bread to the hungry, and vanity cast its jewels to the 
poor. See that good Samaritan pouring oil into the 
stranger's wounds, that amiable Dorcas clothing 
some beggar-boy, that angel of mercy in human form 
standing by the dying bed ! See that retreat for the 
destitute, that infirmary for the dying, that refuge for 
the fallen, that hospital for orphan childhood, that 
almshouse for infirm old age, and far above all, that 
divine array of institutions for causing the waters of 
life to circulate over the world ! Say ye these are 
the fruits of civilization ? Deny ye the glory to the 
despised Nazarene? Then look to your favorite 
Greece and Rome ! Do our bards surpass their poets, 
our builders their architects, our sculptors their 
Phidiases, our orators their Ciceros ? They have 
left behind them monuments of pride and cruelty in 
abundance ; where are their monuments of mercy 
and love? Pass through Imperial Rome at the 
zenith of her power ; or survey at this instant her 
ruins of proud magnificence, glowing in the splen- 
dors of an Italian sunset. You gaze on that amphi- 
theatre of monumental wonders — the Capitol — the 
Pantheon — the Portico — the Forum — the Arch of 
Titus — the Coliseum, where men were butchered for 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 273 

amusement. And is there amongst them all not 
one monument ; ; f mercy? — no hospital for the sick 
— no asylum for the helpless — no school for the poor? 
No, not one ! And it would be difficult to find in 
their purest classic writers a word answering to our 
idea of infirmary ; they never possessed the institu- 
tion, and did not want the name ! 

4. The gospel elevates the ichule nature. — Indeed, 
Christianity cannot but make great and noble char- 
acters. Infusing the loftiest principles of virtue, and 
enforcing these by motives drawn from the skies, it 
inspires the Christian with that heroism which others 
too often simulate, and gives the substance while 
they have but the shadow. With him, Divine prin- 
ciple takes the place of the ■ hectic stimulants of 
earthly honor and applause. Being " G-od's off- 
spring," he is of course " a partaker of the Divine 
nature," and as such is incapable of grovelling mean- 
ness. The man who communes with the skies, can 
lie lick the dust in crouching servility % — or the man 
who fears his God, is he likely to tremble before a 
worm of the dust ? No : such a religion must im- 
part the loftiest dignity to the whole character. 
Hence it has numbered thousands of men, and toomen 
too, in the ranks of dauntless martyrdom ; and given 
birth to a heroism far more sublime than was ever 
felt by mere worldly bravery ;— instance Paul before 
Agrippa, or the wife of Welsh before James ! And 
thus is at once explained the fact, that Protestant 
nations are as great and free as Popish ones are 

18 



274 THE CURE. 



mean and degraded. The one is subjected to a pro- 
cess which indefinitely elevates, and the other to a 
process which as indefinitely degrades ; and hence 
the prodigious superiority in the tone of the former. 
There, woman is found in her true place, by the side 
of man ; there, man indignantly spurns every chain 
which cruelty would forge, or cupidity fasten ; and 
there alone is realized that liberty which Paganism 
knows only in its poetry, and Popery only in its 
dreams. In truth, without the gospel real elevation 
is impossible. Would you ever think of looking to 
other than to Bible lands for all that gives true 
moral dignity to man I No ; while beneath its di- 
vine sway serfdom and barbarism are simple impos- 
sibilities, without it you have virtual degradation even 
amid the splendor of arts, like ancient Greece, and 
arms like ancient Rome, and both like imperial France. 
5. The gospel blesses man for time : — and how 
simple the means by which it does so ; and how well 
worth your study, ye statesmen and philosophers ! 
It approaches the thief and the robber, and how does 
it act ? Does it philosop)liize on the rights of prop- 
erty, &c, and by these conjure him to reform? If 
it did, then we own ye might indeed sneer. No ; 
taking far loftier ground, it pours out the denuncia- 
tions of the Almighty, and pictures the horrors of 
the damned, until he turns pale and stands aghast : 
and then telling him of a Saviour who has purchased 
mercy even for him, and assuring him of pardon if he 
will repent and believe on Him, and Divine aid to 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 275 



enable him to do so if he will sincerely seek it, it 
conjures him to turn to God, and walk in his ways ; 
and in thousands of cases succeeds. Now, must 
not such a religion perfectly annihilate the worst 
causes of social misery? How can that people be 
restless, who are thus taught " to be content ;" or 
disloyal, who "fear God and honor the king;" or 
dishonest, who "render unto all their due;" or idle, 
who dread the sin of being t: slothful in business ;" 
or turbulent, who " follow peace with all men V' 
What child does not see that a parish of real Chris- 
tians must be one of loyal subjects, industrious 
people, united families, honest masters, and faithful 
servants ? Here is the whole secret. You begin at 
the wrong end when you address yourselves first to 
men's temporal interests : — we teach them to " seek 
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," 
and this necessarily involving every subordinate ob- 
ject, " all other things are" of consequence " added." 
Securing their duty to God, we secure, of course 
their duty to mem ; and by this simple means of 
prevailing on them to seek their eternal salvation, 
we bind them d fortiori to observe all those virtues 
which enhance their temporal state. 

Here, then, ye statesmen, is the source of true na- 
tional greatness. If yon would bring back the 
golden age, it is not by turning everything into gold, 
but by the nobler alchemy of the heart. If you 
would improve a people's social condition, improve 
their religious tone ; and the eifect of this will go 



276 THE CURE. 



out in directions of which you never thought. As 
the morning sun enables the shepherd to guide his 
flocks to pasture, but is by the same beams waking 
a thousand forms of life around him, so would the 
Sun of Righteousness enable you to guide this great 
nation, and at the same time shed on it a thousand 
blessings of which you never dreamed. Here too, 
ye patriots, is the true parent of liberty. The Sa- 
viour was one of the people : and it were impossible 
to half obey his precepts without banishing all des- 
potism from the earth. Here is the true friend of 
equal rights, ; forbidding alike the tyranny of the 
sovereign and the treason of the subject. Here is 
the inspirer of that genuine patriotism to which so 
many only pretend, -and the parent of that peace of 
which your " peace societies" idly dream. Attempt- 
ing to take out of the hands of the Prince of peace 
his own proper work, these Utopian visionaries lately 
assembled in the Crystal Palace as their temple of 
concord ; bat their schemes of peace proved as 
fragile as the building they met in. There "all na- 
tions" shook hands, it is true ; but thence they de- 
parted, and rumors of wars immediately sprung up ! 
Alas ! they knew not the true talisman of peace, 
which alone can make men ' : beat their swords into 
ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks." 
Here too is the grand source of individual wealth. 
True, many believers have little ; they would have 
less but for believing. For no man can be a Chris- 
tian without possessing those qualities, and earning 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC. 277 



that character, which tend to advancement. And to 
see this, you need only contrast the career of the 
followers of Paine, or Pio Nono, with that of the 
disciples of Jesus. And while the gospel thus leads 
to wealth, it not less wonderfully sustains in poverty. 
It is emphatically tlie 'poor man's religion ; — and, 
oh ! what a counterpoise he feels in its promises to 
all the ills that flesh is heir to ! Taught to walk by 
faith in his heavenly father, he can maintain a placid 
brow amid the gathering storms of life ; for he sees 
his Parent's love in the dark skies of adversity, as 
well as in the bright beams of prosperity, and hears 
it in the loud bowlings of life's storms, alike with 
the gentle breathing of its zephyrs. Oh, the treble 
wrong of Popery ! first to reduce our countrymen to 
misery ; next to rob them of a religion so consoling ; 
and then to inflict instead a superstition so baleful ! 
Yet Newman says that religion has nothing to do 
with a nation's greatness ! ! Another proof that his 
religion, according to his own confession, lacks that 
"righteousness" which does and must "exalt it." 
The Sun of Righteousness cannot but bless for both 
worlds ; — for as the light of the natural sun, his 
type, not only reveals the azure depths from which 
it came, but spreads a mantle of beauty over the 
earth it falls on ; so does He not only reveal our re- 
lations to God, but spreads over all the mutual rela- 
tions of man that moral verdure, without which so- 
ciety would be a waste.* 

* Williams. 



278 THE CURE. 



6. But tlie gospel mainly respects a better world. — 
True, it is like the majestic river, which, while urg- 
ing its course to the main, clothes with verdure the 
countries it flows through ; — but this is only its 
secondary object. True, this angel sent to bring 
God's people home, smooths and cheers the path 
they travel on ; but its grand com mission respects 
the performance, not the comfort of the journey. 
And it were an insult, not an honor, to view it as a 
mere system of police, and forget its glory as a 
scheme of salvation ; and as absurd too as to sup- 
pose that Christ its author, because he restored the 
sick, came to heal men's bodies, and not to save their 
souls. Its grand concern is with eternity. And as 
our whole line of argument has already demonstra- 
ted that it, and it alone, can fit for heaven, addition- 
al proof is perfectly useless. Since then it is need- 
less to address the judgment further on the subject, 
we eagerly seize the opportunity thus afforded of 
making our solemn appeal to the heart. Then, dear 
reader, whoever you are, bear with one remark. 
The subject of this work is almost too general to 
impress the individual conscience. Speaking of an 
entire nation, one is apt to get lost in the crowd ; 
but our national connection, how brief it is ! Soon 
must we retire from the scene, and leave our coun- 
try in other hands ; then how prodigious our folly, 
if, while concerned about its salvation, we should be 
found to have neglected our own ! How is it with 
you ? If heaven at all differs from earth, you would 



THE MEDICINE THE GRAND SPECIFIC- 279 



gain nothing by being removed thither without un- 
dergoing such a change as would fit you for that dif- 
ference. Hence as it is a place of holiness, " yon 
must be horn again," and undergo the meetening 
process of progressive sanctijkation. Is your grace 
then ripening iuto glory, your path shining more 
and more? It is thus you may read your destiny 
in your character and life; and this is the only in- 
fallible test. Then, by the worth of your souls we 
implore you to apply it. Indifference here is the 
worst kind of insanity. Indifference ! — in a case in 
which enthusiasm is sobriety, and exaggeration is 
impossible ! — the wildest fanaticism were rational in 
comparison, and the gloomiest skepticism not half so 
perilous. 

Such is a mere outline of the fruits of the gospel 
of Christ ! No wonder, indeed, that angels sung his 
first advent, and the earth herself will become vocal 
at his second. Yet " these are but a part of his 
ways ;" and in drawing this brief sketch, we have felt 
like one who surveys the placid ocean from the 
masthead, and can but descry a few miles around, 
while a boundless expanse of waters stretches away 
undiscovered beyond. Yet this is the system of 
which some exclaim, " What has religion to do with 
national greatness?" and men who will sit at the 
feet of Smith or Blackstone, to learn the secret of a 
nation's government, will scorn to sit at the feet of 
Jesus ! If his minister presents his great statute- 
book at the senate house, he is told that its sphere 



280 THE CURE. 



is the nursery or the sick chamber. If he brings it 
to the college, he is derisively asked, What has reli- 
gion to do with learning? And if he would intro- 
duce it to the school-house, he is informed that it is 
too holy a book to put into the hands of children ! 
Are the men fit to rule this great empire who do not 
yet know what has made it great ; or to govern 
Ireland, who will not learn the lesson its northern 
province would teach them ? Ye godless statesmen, 
go to Ulster, the only part of Ireland which saves 
your credit ; and say, is it the ministers of the 
Crown, or those of the Cross, who deserve this 
credit ? While the turbulent priest has been sowing 
the fair south thick with disorder, visit that northern 
congregation. Mark their intelligence, their decorum, 
their quietness so profound, that the thought of dis- 
turbance has never crossed them in their dreams. 
Where are your police, your soldiers, your magis- 
trates ? They are not there ; for they are not 
wanted. Then, who has done all this 1 A single 
gospel minister. That man's voice it is which has 
hushed that parish to stillness. That man's hand it 
is which has sown it so thick with industry, that no 
beggar is seen there ; with light, that superstition is 
unknown there ; and with peace, that were an agita- 
tor to come there, the only breach of the peace at all 
likely to ensue would be one committed on himself; 
and his secret is — the glorious gospel. Or, if 
you are yet so obtuse as not to learn this lesson from 
Ulster, then cross the channel, and say, what has 



THE MEDICINE THE GllAND SPECIFIC. 281 



subdued the rugged Scot, once as wild as his moun- 
tains, and spread peace and gladness over all his 
borders? What else but the everlasting gospel? 
And if you will not receive this at our humble lips, 
surely you will hearken to Scotland's own deathless 
orator — Chalmers — when he tells you that, but for 
this, " the ferocity of their ancestors would have 
come down, un softened and unsubdued, to the exist- 
ing generation. The darkening spirit of hostility 
would still have lowered upon us from the north ; 
and these plains, now so peaceful and so happy, 
would have lain open to the fury of merciless inva- 
ders. Oh, ye soft and sentimental travellers, who 
wander so securely over this romantic land, you are 
right to choose the season when the angry elements 
of nature are asleep ! But what is it that has 
charmed to their long repose the more dreadful 
elements of human passion and human injustice? 
What is it that has quelled the boisterous spirit of 
her natives ? — and while her torrents roar as fiercely, 
and her mountain brows look as grim as ever, what 
is that which has thrown so softening an influence 
over the minds and manners of her living population?" 
" What would they have been at this moment, had 
schools, and Bibles, and ministers been kept back 
from them?" 



282 THE CURE. 



CHAPTER III. 

TREATMENT INFORMATION. 

We have thus got distinctly before us the curse 
and the cure — the poison and the medicine. And 
the question remains, What are the best means of 
removing the one and dispensing the other? Our 
first obvious duty is to inform the public as to what 
is the curse and the cure. Rome has long flourished 
on Protestant ignorance. In these happy realms, 
we see but the skirts of her foul garments ; hence 
that good old horror of Popery which our godly 
fathers felt, has grown unpopular; and there has 
sprung up a class of Protestants who, while revel- 
ling in the blessings those fathers wrung from her 
with their blood, denounce them as narrow-minded 
bigots ; — men whose own creed is their condemna- 
tion — who betray the principles they profess to up- 
hold — who are the inquiring Romanist's worst stum- 
bling-block, and furnish Rome with her best argu- 
ment — who even presume to read us lectures on 
Christian charity — and whom we are chiefly to 
thank for the vast growth of Popish power amongst 
us, and that suicidal pro-Popery legislation, under 
which the kingdom begins to reel. Some good men, 
too, have followed their example; and forgetting 
that Rome is a " beast," they have thought, in their 
ignorance, to coax and conciliate her, and discounte- 



TREATMENT INFORMATION. 283 



nance, as improper, those terms which God himself 
applies to her. " The Man of Sin" is, in their par- 
lance, the sovereign pontiff", and the "Mystery of 
Iniquity," the Catholic Church ; " Popery," is Cathol- 
icism, and the " priests," the Catholic clergy ! By 
this course, they have thought to conciliate Rome, 
as if Satan could be vanquished by smiles and com- 
pliments ! and to convert her people, as if the best 
way to alarm their souls was to half conceal their 
danger ! Alas, such are neither the men nor the 
means God usually honors! We stop not to ask 
on what grounds our country's great Destroyer is 
entitled to such courtesy ; we would only say, that 
those who would encounter the Popish "Antichrist," 
can still less afford to "wear soft raiment" than 
either Elijah or the Baptist. We ourselves once 
thought that blandness was better than boldness ; 
but experience has taught us God's infinite wisdom 
in giving so much sternness to his best reformers, 
and amply explained why Luther and Knox were so 
much more successful than Cranmer and Melancthon. 
Now, we must get done with this misplaced suavity, 
and in order thereto, strip off the drapery in which 
Protestant pseudo-liberalism has decked out Rome, 
and uncover her nakedness to universal gaze. We 
must take means that the whole nation shall make 
their perfect acquaintance with her ; and then they 
will instantly see that the robber is entitled to as 
much courtesy as Rome, and that gentleness to her 
is cruelty to her victims. 



284 THE CURE. 



This information should be practical and scientific 
as well as theological. Perhaps we have made the 
whole question of Popery too much an ecclesiastical 
one ; and this may be the reason why many feel no 
interest in it, and deem it, for the most part, a sec- 
tarian squabble of little social importance. Now, 
we must deal more with the practical of Rome ; 
show that it concerns the politician as well as the 
theologian ; the citizen of this world as well as the 
expectant of the next ; and convict it as man's great 
foe, not merely from revelation, but from science and 
fact. It has a prodigious advantage of us while we 
treat it on merely religious grounds ; for that is a 
province so repulsive to some, and so mysterious to 
others, that they will not follow us into it. We 
must, then, for their sakcs. come down from the 
mount ; and, as the great apostle met the philoso- 
phic Greek on Mars Hill, as well as the superstitious 
Jew in the temple, and with arguments admirably 
adapted to each, so must we show practical men the 
facts, and scientific men the philosophy, as well as 
religious men the theology, of this question. Had 
Popery thus long ago been treated ; had its falseness 
been demonstrated by an appeal to fact and philoso- 
phy, as well as to Scripture ; had it been shown to 
be a violation of the great laws of the universe, as 
much as the incantations of witchcraft, what could 
have hindered it from sharing the same fate? At 
least surely we would not now hear the cry of prac- 
tical infidelity, What has religion to do with science 1 



TREATMENT INFORMATION. 285 



— nor that of sickly pietism, What has science to do 
with religion ? — nor would we have appeals against 
Popery characterized as the effusions of bigotry ; 
nor a college endowed for teaching transubstantia- 
tion, any more than schools for propagating the 
Hindoo notion that the earth rests on an elephant's 
back, or the Peruvian belief that eclipses are at- 
tempts of a dragon to devour the sun. 

Moreover, Popery is not enough felt to be Satan's 

GRAND CONTRIVANCE TO COUNTERWORK THE GOSPEL. 

We have not been at sufficient pains to trace the ca- 
reer of this great agent of evil, and show that as he 
had ruder snares for earlier ages, he has more elab- 
orate devices for modern ones; — that as all truth 
is one, so in reality is all error ; and that as Grod 
has gradually developed the truth to suit the gradu- 
al developments of our race, from the patriarchal to 
the Christian age, so has Satan as gradually devel 
oped the error, from the rudest forms of early idol 
atry to Popery his masterpiece ; — that as in the va 
rious systems of light, you have the same great fea- 
tures of salvation by grace through a divine Saviour, 
and by a divine Spirit, reproduced with increasing 
clearness till we reach Christianity, the mystery of 
godliness, so in the various systems of darkness we 
have the same counterfeit features of salvation by 
works through priests and mummeries, till we reach 
Popery, the mystery of iniquity ; — and that as the 
gospel is the last and most perfect development of 
the one, so is Toper y of the other. Yet it is thus 



286 THE CURE. 



we ought to handle Popery, and prove that it is the 
elaborate result of ages of Satan's experience in the 
art of ruining souls ; and that in order to its con- 
summate perfection, that evil one has laid all his 
other systems under contribution, and not only 
rifled Judaism, but culled from Gnosticism and pla- 
giarized Paganism. Here, for instance, you have 
Pharisaism contributing its outward purifications and 
" traditions of the elders." Here you have celibacy, 
self-inflictions, and monastic austerities, borrowed 
from the Gnostic, who thought matter the source of 
evil, and the flesh the seat of sin. And here, above 
all, you have Paganism baptized in the name of 
Jesus ; with Peter for Jupiter — Mary, the Papist's 
queen of heaven, for Juno, the Pagan's — and saints 
and angels for gods and demi-gods. Ay, and so 
shameless has been the plagiarism, that purgatory is 
accurately described in Virgil's iEneid ; the pres- 
ent statue of Peter at Rome is the identical statue 
of Jupiter Capitolinus ; even the Pope's chair is 
said to have been pilfered from the Mussulman ; and 
Romulus and Remus are worshipped as two holy 
bishops,^under the names of Romulo and Remigio !•* 
Such is the ground we should take — exposing the 
Satanic philosojjhy of Popery, and showing that it 
is an eclectic system of evil, contrived with fearful 
skill to thwart every law of God and of our nature, 
and to poison the springs of salvation ; and all un- 
der the most ingenious guise of Christianity. In a 
* Seymour's Pilgrimage to Rome. 



TREATMENT INFORMATION. 287 

word, it should be our labor to show that Popery 
was born at the fall, and came of age when the triple 
crown was mounted ; and that as light was God's 
first creation, but was diffused through the firma- 
ment till centered in the sun on the fourth day, so 
in reality Popery was Satan's first offspring, whose 
diffused spirit you can distinctly trace through all 
false systems, but which only attained a fixed and 
visible centre when enthroned on the seven hills. 

It is also of immense importance that Home's 
tactics in these L ingdoms should be thoroughly un- 
derstood. They are embraced in two words, cun- 
ning and blustering — admirably adapted to the in- 
firmities of the English character. The English- 
man, honest himself, is disposed to think all others 
so, and to forget that it is the greatest deceivers who 
smile most sweetly, aud the greatest cowards who 
bluster most vociferously : and so he who rules the 
main, and gives laws to the nations, has been alter- 
nately cajoled and frightened by a few priests. And 
to what terrible account they have turned this great 
error ! Just as England has yielded, they have en- 
croached ; and she has never stood firm but they 
have at once knocked under. The more sops she 
Las thrown to these Irish Cerberuses they have only 
growled the louder, and she has never chastised them 
but they have cowered into their dens. In 1641, 
the tampering of Charles brought on a rebellion ; 
Cromwell came, and in six months made the country 
that honest men could live in it for half-a-century 



288 THE CURE. 



after. In the latter end of last century, the volcano 
began once more to smoke and rumble. Pitt, to 
quiet it, founded a college, and promised emancipa- 
tion. The rebellion of 1798 was the gratitude he 
received ; and coercion again quelled the storm which 
false conciliation had occasioned. A brief interval 
only elapsed, when the priests returned to their old 
trade of hatching rebellion ; concession was again 
tried ; and when, in 1829, emancipation was granted, 
the}- pledged themselves that they would henceforth 
be quiet. Did they keep their pledge a day ? No ; 
agitation only increased ; and our rulers, to quiet it, 
increased the Maynooth grant, jjroposed to endow 
the priest, ay, and approached the den of the beast to 
beg he would keep " his Irish cubs," as they have 
been termed, in order ; — so that even a Con naught 
peasant was heard to exclaim. - They would pension 
the devil, sir, if he would promise to keep the priests 
quiet." Well, this petting ended as before, in an- 
other rebellion : troops once more came, and peace 
was restored. Last of all, Wiseman arrived — Eng- 
land arose — and the Pope trembled; but her splendid 
Protestant demonstrations ended in a ridiculous Ag- 
gression Bill; and instantly the " Catholic Defence 
Association" was formed, which proposes to change 
even the " Protestant succession." Now, we must 
get done with this absurd and ruinous policy, and 
restore the true difference between the righteous and 
the wicked. What claim have these men to this ex- 
cessive dandling % Is it their usefulness ? Yes ; 



TREATMENT: — INFORMATION. 289 

and Ireland is its monument ! whose every town is 
polluted by their intrigues, and pestered by their 
outrages. Is it their loyalty ? Yes ; and our rebel- 
lions are the proofs ! And shall we continue ex- 
tending them privileges which we see uniformly 
turned against the givers, and only employed to 
effect our own overthrow ? Is not hatred of England 
the feeling they are constantly instilling into their 
credulous people's minds 1 — and with such fearful 
success, that thousands of emigrants are yearly leav- 
ing us with scalding curses on their lips against her, 
and even from their new transatlantic home the 
western breeze wafts many a deep malediction ; inso- 
much that were another American war to break out, 
England's deadliest foes would be those of her own 
household, and their very children would rush as to 
a sacred duty to revenge their fathers' "wrongs." 
Indeed, Irish priests take no pains to disguise their 
malignant hate, or conceal their joy at England's 
most trifling embarrassments ; — who can forget their 
delight, for example, when the first reverses of the 
Punjaub were announced '? Yes ; and this hatred 
no kindness has been able to mitigate. If ever one 
transient glow of gratitude could have been kindled 
in their breasts, it would have surely been by Eng- 
land's kindness during the famine ; when, from the 
Queen to the cottager, from the church to the thea- 
tre, all ranks and classes poured in their munificent 
offerings. Well, scarce had that famine abated, when 
the convulsions of Europe occurred ; the priests could 

19 



290 THE CURE. 



not conceal their ecstasy at the prospect of Eng- 
land's being involved in a continental war ; and in 
hope of this they fomented the rebellion of 1 848 ! 
Tims, while Britain's meat was in their mouths did 
they attempt to stab to the heart the benefactress 
which had saved them alive, and give too just ground 
for the remark, " That Rome was like the hyena, 
which hunger could not tame, nor kindness con- 
ciliate !" 

Finally, it needs to be proclaimed with trumpet- 
tongue that the priests have for years been playing a 
deep game for the reconquest of " perfidious Albion ;" 
for there are thousands of our people whose eyes 
no amount of evidence on this point has yet been 
able to open. Forgetting that Rome is " all a lie," 
and therefore more dangerous in her smiles than her 
fury — forgetting that unerring Scripture has assigned 
her the twofold character of beast and serpent, and 
that when she dare not be the one, she is sure to be 
the other — forgetting that while in Naples she is 
strewing her noisome lair with dead and dying cap- 
tives, in England the language of meekness drops 
from her lips soft as the dews of Hermon, — forget- 
ting all this, multitudes still listen unsuspecting to 
her brazen protestations of innocence and truth. 
And skilfully has she traded on this incomprehensi- 
ble stupidity ! If we say she is mild because she 
dare not be fierce^ in tones of injured innocence she 
complains of our bigotry ; and adjusting the mask 
of virgin loveliness over her haggard face, and the 



TREATMENT INFORMATION. 29 1 

robe of angel purity over her hideous form, she 
walks through Westminster, looking up to heaven 
with eyes of meek resignation ! And many believe 
her ! Scarlet, they say, may once have been her 
dress, but now it is virgin white ! Infatuated men ! 
Will no amount of treachery open your eyes ? — and 
will you really adduce in proof of her dove-like in- 
nocence, that simulated smile which most clearly 
proves her the child of him whose 

" Gentle dumb expression, turned at length 



The eye of Eve— " 1 

Will you not at least believe Iwrself- — for she makes 
no secret that England is the dazzling prize she 
struggles for 1 Were you not told by Father Igna- 
tius, of " praying societies" for her conversion, and 
of the 300 days' indulgence lately granted to all 
who would say a " Hail, Mary," for this object ? 
Were you not told by Gavazzi of " Jesuit servant 
societies," for enabling these pests of mankind to 
creep into Protestant families in the guise of do- 
mestics 1 Is not the bull " In cozno Domini" read 
from every chapel each holy Thursday, thus proving 
to all who are not willing dupes, that Rome has 
never abandoned her demands on England's fealty? 
And if she claims to ride over us now when she 
cannot, will she not do so the first moment she 
can ? And think you the man who for this object 
keeps his fanatics praying, and his Jesuits prowling 
over the land : would not hurl our Queen from her 



292 THE CURE. 

throne if he could, and put a Mary or a James in 
her room 1 Then let all Englishmen know assured- 
ly, that Rome's deadly eye is on '• their faith and 
their firesides ;" and that wherever they meet her 
clouds of priests, whether heading a mob, horsewhip 
in hand, or at vice-regal levees in silken hose ; 
whether putting down a school in Connaught, or 
getting wp one in Edinburgh; all — all are patient- 
ly performing their several parts in this gigantic 
conspiracy against Protestant England. The ser- 
pent's great design is on that Eden of Protestantism, 
and he has for years been stealing steadily towards 
it ; and whether he has been now taking a circuitous 
route to beguile the simple, or again hiding amongst 
the flowers to elude the' suspicious, or, as in tlie late 
aggression, making a visible spring — be assured of 
this one thing, that on he comes. And even grant- 
ing that Home has for once made a blunder, and 
having missed her spring, may now slink into the 
thicket and wait a better opportunity — even grant- 
ing that she has found the breach not yet practi- 
cable, and may suspend the assault, in order the 
more noiselessly to expedite the mine — what doom 
do we deserve if we ever forget the lesson she has 
taught us ? She will profit by her blunder — and if 
we do not, the stolid infatuation of Samson, while 
fondling with another harlot, was sagacious vigi- 
lance in comparison ; and, resembling him in his 
folly we will assuredly be like him in his fate ! 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 293 



CHAPTER IV. 

TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 

Some have a prejudice against legislative inter 
ference with Rome, as though it were an encroach- 
ment of the temporal power on the spiritual. They 
forget that Rome is a power, both temporal and spir- 
itual — that the Pope is G-od's viceroy as well as his 
vicar, and wears a crown as well as a cross ; that 
" all power is Christ's in heaven and on earth," and 
must therefore be his, as Christ's representative ; 
and that those principles which they guard with such 
praiseworthy jealousy are therefore inapplicable to 
Rome. Of course, she denies this also ; and in 
Britain, notwithstanding Wiseman's office and acts, 
claims to be merely spiritual. But has she not ever 
proved the most intolerable temporal tyrant that 
ever trampled down the nations? Is not the Pope 
"dominus totius orbis" — and not content to be a 
king among kings, has he not ever claimed to be 
king of kings 1 How many monarchs has he de- 
throned, and kingdoms absolved from their oaths of 
allegiance ? How often has he made, sovereigns hold 
his stirrup, and their prostrate necks the steps from 
which he mounted it 1 And if such things occur not 
now, think you is want of power or of ivill the rea- 
son ? Yet, in the face of her history, her decrees, 
and all her acts this moment, many have somehow 



294 THE CURE. 

been cajoled into the notion, that we ought to deal 
with Rome as a mere spiritual power. So boots 
and thumbscrews are spiritual weapons ! — stakes and 
fagots spiritual arguments ! — and the annual decla- 
ration above noticed, that our Queen is a heretic 
usurper, who must lose her crown if not her head on 
the first opportunity, a spiritual announcement ! In 
truth, it is this very masking of the temporal be- 
neath the spiritual power, on the ground of which 
she would claim indulgence, that forfeits all her 
claims to it ; just as the skulking robber deserves 
less mercy than the open manly one. It is therefore 
no wonder that many good men are at this moment 
asking, Is it a right use of liberty to extend it to a 
system which denies it to all others : or of tolera- 
tion, to grant it to a church which tolerates none 
who dare think for themselves? But we would not 
be intolerant even to Rome, though we thus speak. 
We would have the world see that there is in Eu- 
rope one glorious country which can afford to toler- 
ate even her ; and the legislation we would now pro- 
pose in no wise interferes with the sacred principles 
of religious liberty. We would only demand, that 
beneath the name of freedom we shall not have fa- 
voritism, nor continue to endoiv what at most we 
should only endure. And therefore two measures, 
at least, we claim at the hands of the legislature : — 
that Rome's " religious" prisons shall not be the only 
ones on our soil exempt from public inspection ; and 
that if she will be allowed to diffuse her poison 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 295 



through the realm, she shall at least support its chief 
manufactory herself. 

The Convent. — " Retreats of piety" — how sweet 
the sound ! None knows better than Rome " how 
much is in a name" — Rome, that mistress of the 
arts of nomenclature ; which calls her most villanous 
order " the Society of Jesus" and her most infernal 
tribunal " the holy office !" She is like other ser- 
pents, generally most dangerous in her gayest fasci- 
nations ; throws the most imposing drapery round 
her most iniquitous scenes, and baptizes her foulest 
deeds with the fairest titles. And oh ! how exem- 
plified in the convent ! We have traced the young 
female thither, and found her leaving her happiness 
at the gate, and commencing a struggle with the 
laws of her being compared to which crucifixion 
were mercy. We have seen that unless the laws 
of nature are a delusion, that young creature must 
there stifle all the fond throbbings of a woman's 
soul, commit suicide without the relief of dying, and 
bury herself alive without finding that rest which the 
grave usually brings to the weary. And this is Rome's 
best oblation to heaven ! — her most transcendental 
type of piety ! — to pluck the young heart out of the 
gentle bosom, and attempt to replace it with a lump 
of marble — to inflict upon its victim the feeling of 
wretchedness, from which she can only escape by get- 
ting rid of all feeling ! We now add, that it is the 
nature of this gloomy prison-house to decoy those 



296 THE CURE. 



young females whose hearts are least capable of 
such petrifaction. It is the artless girl of pious 
tendencies — the child of romance and sentiment — 
whose glowing young fancy throws a halo round 
everything, who is most easily ensnared by visions 
of conventual bliss. And thus this dreadful old 
sorceress not only drags the young female from life, 
just when its vernal flowers are all bursting around 
her ; but selects for the sacrifice the most precious 
victim, and makes her very excellence and piety the 
means of her decoy ! Ah ! fancy that girl's feelings 
when the spell at length breaks — when she awakes, 
and behold it was a dream — when the mirage melts 
away, and she finds a dreary desert where she looked 
for living waters ! Perhaps some simple Protestant 
replies, " But I have been to convents, and the nuns 
who showed us through them said they were all 
so happy." And was there nothing suspicious in 
the great pains they took to convince you of their 
felicity? Then what mean those high walls and 
iron gratings ? And why does a church so saga- 
cious needlessly provoke suspicion, by giving such 
paradises the air of prisons ? Ah ! think you there 
is no occasion ? Then read the honest narrative of 
one, who in England seemed favorable to Popery, 
but went to Rome and was effectually cured. The 
scenes Mr. Seymour describes as being at this 
moment enacted in Italian nunneries are absolutely 
heart-rending. One friend, in particular, who knew 
several nuns, and was well acquainted with " the 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 297 

secrets of their prison-house," assured liim that •' the 
broken-hearted looks the shades of deep and indeli- 
ble sorrow, the lines of settled and unalterable sad- 
ness, the expression of resentment or despair that 
characterized many of these young creatures, used 
to affect his heart, sadden all his best feelings, and 
trouble his very dreams. He could not think or 
speak of the subject without such feelings, but that 
the tears would come into his eyes, saying, that it 
was inconceivable the number of nuns that went to 
an early grave under this system." He assured 
him that numbers of them, when the religious hectic 
which brought them thither had subsided, and they 
awoke to all the dreary realities of their state, " soon 
pined and saddened, and, sinking into despair, died 
of madness j" that this was " the melancholy destiny 
of the greater portion, and that nothing on earth 
could induce him, with the knowledge he possessed, 
to allow one of his daughters to take the veil, for 
that the majority of nuns at Rome died of madness 
before tliey were five-and-twenty years of age! V* 

Now think of hundreds in our own land annually 
offered on this dreadful altar, flowers that might 
have shed beauty and fragrance on their entire circle, 
ruthlessly plucked in their first vernal buddings, and 
consigned to those cells to droop and perish ! In 
Ireland alone there are a hundred and thirteen 

* Seymuurs Pilgrimage to Rome, p. 182. For a dis- 
tressing account of the order of nuns called the Sepulie vive 
or " the buried alive," see p. 188. 



298 THE CURE. 



convents !* Throughout the entire United King- 
dom they are rising on every hand ; and if Rome 
had her will, these living sepulchres would cover the 
empire. And for aught we can tell, those which al- 
ready exist may be scenes of fearful vice and ruffian 
violence. Maria Monk has revealed the abomina- 
tions of the Montreal convent, and the Rev. Mr. 
Slocum has proved the full truth of her disclosures. 
The French soldiery found sixty-two young women 
corrupted and ruined in the apartments of the 
Inquisitors of Spain : and both French and Eng- 
lish discovered manifold proofs of guilt on the prem- 
ises of Peninsular convents. When Mr. Seymour 
was at Rome, an abbess rushed forth in a frenzy 
from one of the nunneries of that city, and sought 
relief from remorse beneath the waves of the Tiber. 
And what proof can you have that those crimes 
which are rife in other convents have no existence in 
ours — that their walls witness no villany, and hear 
no cries of outraged innocence ? If we suspect them 
wrongfully, the fault is their own ; for if all is right, 
why is not all opcnl It is vice, not virtue, that 
hates the light, and suffers from exposure ; and 
piety, above all things, detests concealment, and 
avoids even the "appearance of evil." " 0, but re- 
ligion must not be interfered with !" Religion ! 
that heavenly angel in whose outraged name Rome 
does her darkest deeds, beneath whose skirt she al- 
ways hides her guiltiest acts, burying them the deep- 

* Catholic Directory, 1852. 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 299 

er in its folds the more .truculent they are ! Reli- 
gion ! which never yet concealed anything, because 
it has nothing to conceal ! Religion ! which is used 
as the decoy to these prisoners, is forsooth made the 
plea for preventing their escape and concealing the 
'■rimes of which they may be the victims ! Say, 
shall that be taken as a valid plea, which is in truth 
the darkest feature of the case ; and shall Rome be 
permitted to transform religion into a jailer of female 
innocence, and station her at every convent-door, to 
prevent the entrance of justice, or the escape of woe ? 
Then, fellow-Christians ! approach the feet of your 
Queen, and pray that no convent shall be permitted 
in her dominions without being open to inspection. 
And if Rome shall be allowed to prowl through your 
families, kidnap your daughters, and bear them off 
to her fastnesses, there to be robbed of liberty, prop- 
erty, and perhaps virtue too — to be tortured, it 
may be, under the sweet name of " sister," and pos- 
sibly ruined under the hallowed title of " saint" — to 
endure actual misery beneath the mockery of pre- 
tended bliss, and be compelled to smile while anguish 
is eating their hearts ; — at least insist that these 
dens shall be examined, and those who are injured 
protected, and those who have " come to themselves" 
allowed to go free. Shall Britain, which hunts the 
man-stealer through every sea — whose fair soil no 
slave can touch, but his chains burst from around 
him — which breaks open the private dwelling to de- 
liver the victim of wrong, punished the advocate 



300 THE CURE. 



Sloane for abusing his little iiiaid-servant — and will 
not permit one act of " cruelty" even to the lower 
creation ; shall Britain show favor only to this moral 
monster, and refuse relief to the helpless young fe- 
males who shriek from its dens ? Shall Britain, 
whose humanity sought for Stoddart amid the sands 
of the East, and still seeks for Franklin amongst the 
icebergs of the North ; — Britain, the asylum of the 
earth's remotest exiles, permit her worst foe, on 
pretences " false as hell," so far to abuse her hospi- 
tality, and impose on her credulity, as to decoy and 
incarcerate her own fair daughters, on her own fair 
soil, without a chance of escape — and for no other 
crime than their artless innocence and religious en- 
thusiasm ? 

The College. — After all we have said of Irish 
priests, the offspring, we need not surely say much 
of Maynooth, the parent ; nor enter its gloomy 
walls to discover its genuine character. Every effect 
has its adequate cause ; and to judge correctly of a 
fountain, it is enough to examine its streams. We 
care very little what interested witnesses may testify, 
or official visitors see ; while our reason remains 
we must judge of the tree by its fruits, and if, on 
visiting days, all looks lovely and charming within 
Maynooth College, it is only another proof, not of 
Rome's innocence, but her serpent cunning. 

And why should we look for any thing else ? Could 
we expect a seminary for heralds of darkness to be 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 301 



radiant with light, or a school for patrons of pollu- 
tion to be redolent of purity ? Would the father of 
this system take such pains to mould the people to his 
will, and be careless only about those by idiom he 
chiefly moulds them 1 Would lie who is so watchful 
of his prisoners, be neglectful only of his turnkeys > 
No ; as sure as Rome is Satan's masterpiece, it is in 
the training of her priestlwod you would naturally 
look for his deepest strokes of policy, and expect to 
see the art of blasting souls practised in its highest 
branches. Let us see how far these expectations 
are realized in the present case. Imagine the great 
adversary devising such a college as would best suit 
his dreadful purpose ; and his aim would clearly be 
to contrive such an one as would most thoroughly 
subjugate the minds of the priests, and, at tlw same 
time, best fit them for subjugating those of the 
people. It is clear that to accomplish this difficult 
task he would give the former enough instruction to 
raise them just so far above the latter as to enable 
them thoroughly to enslave them, but no farther-*- 
enough to make them fiery zealots, but not enough 
to liberalize their minds ; in a word, such an educa- 
tion as would qualify them for mischief, but not such 
as would fit them for usefulness. Now, you have 
only to bear this single fact in mind, in order to have 
the most perfect key to the entire history, instruc- 
tions, and character of Maynooth College. 

First look to its history. Rome long sighed for 
such a college in Ireland, for France being a much 



>02 THE CURE. 



more enlightened country, its colleges were necessa- 
rily too good for her purposes in Ireland ; hence 
those Irish priests who had been brought up in 
France returned home far 1<><> liberal and enlightened 
for her oty'ects ! A domestic college, therefore, be- 
came indispensable ; and one enjoying the smiles of 
Government was most desirable. Now, mark her 
consummate policy. In 1793, Drs. Troy and O'Reilly 
assured Mr. Pitt that if their priests continued to be 
educated in France, they would all return revolution- 
ists ; but if he endowed a college for them at home, 
such a college would prevent their exposure to the 
political corruption of foreign governments, and such 
an endowment would ensure their loyalty to their 
own ! Such was their argument at the very time 
when they were members of a secret society which 
was hatching the rebellion of 1798!! Pitt seized 
the idea, vainly thinking that whatever contributed 
to make the priests independent of their flocks 
would weaken by so much their moral influence 
among them ! It was thus a plot and a counterplot ; 
but priest-craft proved an overmatch for state-craft. 
Forgetting that Rome's influence was not moral, but 
superstitious ; that her slaves were chained to her, 
not by respect for her character, but dread of her 
ghostly power ; and that the way to emancipate them 
was, not to endow Iter, but to enlighten them ; — for- 
getting this, if he ever knew it, the premier was out- 
witted by the priest, and that ill-omened child of Grod- 
dishonoring expediency was born in 1795. It is now, 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 303 



therefore, 57 years old ; and if its days Lave not 
been "few," they have verily been "evil." Never 
was that retributive decree more terribly fulfilled — 
" Be sure your sin will find you out." With this col- 
lege was to commence the reign of Peace in Ireland ; 
the Olive-tree was to bloom on every hill, and that 
worse brood of serpents than any St. Patrick ex- 
pelled was to be charmed into perfect innocence by 
the incantations of the Treasury. Maynooth, in short, 
was to be a spring of healing waters amongst us ; but 
instead of this, it has proved " a cauldron of seething 
horrors, around which are squatted the old hags of 
treason, disaffection, and agrarian outrage ; and this 
has been the chorus of their song — 

" Double, double, toil and trouble." * 

Look next to its course of instruction, and you 
will find Satan pursuing with singular exactness the 
same plan of debasement with the priest that we 
have seen him pursue with the people, only, of course, 
on a more refined and subtle scale ; and that the en- 
tire system of Maynooth training is manifestly con- 
trived to cramp the mind, destroy the conscience, 
shrivel the Jieart, degrade the ivhole nature, and 
hence to send forth just such an ignorant, depraved, 
turbulent, and vulgar priesthood as now infest the 
land. 

If you look to its mental training, to judge by its 
programme, it would seem most respectable ; but we 
* Rev. Mr. Goold, at. Edinburgh Anti-Maynooth Meeting. 



304 THE CURE. 



need only apply the infallible test of actual attain- 
ment to find its real character. For example, its 
professor of natural philosophy confessed before the 
committee of inquiry, that he was not certain if 
more than two thirds of his students could at the 
end of the session demonstrate the 47th proposition 
of the first book of Euclid ! — that he thought the 
majority of them could tell the cause of an eclipse ! ! 
— and that he himself ; ' did not know the: subject- 
matter of Euclid's sixth book ! ! !"* Should this 
not satisfy you, kind reader, you need only examine 
our priests themselves, and you will find them, of all 
professional men, the most ignorant as a class. 
Nothing can be more extraordinary than many of 
their effusions, both oral and written. The follow- 
ing specimen is, we assure you, little in comparison 
to what we might adduce. It is a reply to a note 
sent by a Protestant missionary to a Popish priest 
— whom the author had not long ago to summon for 
flogging one of his scholars — inviting him to attend 
a controversial lecture : — : ' The Rev. Mr. Harring- 
ton presents his compliments to Rev. D. Foley, and 
begs to return his circular. The Rev. Mr. Harring- 
ton objects to the lecture for two reasons : first, lie 
has not lime to clo so, for twelve o'clock is the hour 
appointed for him by the holy Roman Catholic 
Church to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass, 
and preach a moral discourse to his Christian hear- 

* Evidence of Rev. Nicholas Callen, D.D., Irish Education 
Report, viii., App pp. 146-148. 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 305 

ers , secondly, Rev. Mr. Harrington, finding from 
•the orthography in the circular that the lecture can- 
not be orthodox, lacks inclination to be present at 
any lecture coming from that quarter. — Castletown, 
January 27th, 1349 ! F'* 

Look next to Maynootlrs moral training. Its 
principal class-books are those depositories of vile- 
ness — Delahogne and Bailly. The former, for in- 
stance, telling us under what circumstances stealing 
is no sin ; and the latter teaching that the church 
has full power to absolve from oaths " when the honor 
of God the goad of the church, or tlie good of society 
requires it" and that '•'• tlie siqyerioi's of tlie church 
are to be tlie judges in all cases .'"f Indeed, if you 
look into tlie Eighth "Report of the Education Com- 
mission of Inquiry, you will find the witnesses 
obliged to acknowledge, despite all the shuffling they 
could resort to, that in Maynooth everything is fully 
taught which is dishonoring to Grod, subversive of 
morality, and ruinous to society, in the Popish sys- 
tem ; and how could it be otherwise in a Popish 
college? Yes; and while, according to one of the 
professors there were a few years ago only ten Bi- 
bles among 400 students, each is required to pur- 
chase Bailly and Dclahogue, and every week to give 
9 hours to them in class, and 48 hours in prepara- 

* Missionary Tour through South and West of Ireland. 
By Rev. D. Foley. 

f Delahogue Tract, de Praecept. Decalogi, pp. 232-236 ; 
Bailly's Moral Theology, vol. ii. p. 140. 

20 



306 THE CURE. 



tion. They are, therefore, the consta it companions 
of the student, and over their foul images he is 
compelled for hours to pore, at that age when his 
passions are strongest. No wonder an emancipated 
student declared,, that " such an effect had they on 
his mind, as nearly to drive him into a species of 
delirium ! and that in order to save himself from the 
effects of his own feelings, he has gone down on a 
cold winter's morning into the chapel of the institu- 
tion, and there remained till nearly chilled to death 
reading them on his knees, and praying the while 
that he might be kept from the evil emotions they 
suggested to his mind."* Is it strange that when 
the mental and the moral of the Irish priest are so 
blasted, the animal of his nature should have such 
complete ascendency ? 

Observe, again, the influence of Maynooth on his 
Jieart. He must now learn to become an isolated 
being, to whom domestic joys are a sinful thought ; 
and that vow of celibacy is here taken which nips in 
the bud the best feelings of his nature, and sends its 
blight through his whole soul. Everything is con- 
trived to dry up the springs of affection to Grod and 
man. Witness those morose austerities ; witness 
that Breviary, of which he must daily read 30 to 40 
pages, and whose endless repetition must create for- 
mality, and hypocrisy, if not utter disgust at devo- 
tion. Witness the silence which is strictly enforced, 
sometimes for weeks together ; and, during most of 

* Ireland in 1846, p. 34. 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 307 

the year, for 21-£ hours out of the 24.* Witness the 
suspicious surveillance which never allows fewer than 
three students together, that the third may be a spy 
on the other two ; and to evade which, one student 
often stands inside a door, and the other outside, in 
order to whisper through the pannels ! 

Observe, finally, the system of subjugation here 
pursued. Implicit obedience is the first command- 
ment. The grand maxim of the college is, that each 
student must ''• think as his superior thinks." And 
to this great centre-point, breaking cloivn the mind 
to the wiU of ot/terSj all is made to converge. Only 
think of such a system pursued for seven years of 
that }^outhful period when the mind is most plastic, 
with but the annual interruption of six weeks' vaca- 
tion ! And so constant is its influence, that the stu- 
dents are seldom allowed outside the gates, save for 
a walk on Wednesdays, and even then they are 
watched by tutors lest the fearful process should be 
suspended for an hour. 

Now, if so much of this evil system is thus reveal- 
ed to public gaze, despite the profound secrecy which 
Rome in all things observes, what might you expect 
to find if admitted to the inmost 'penetralia of May- 
nooth ? And considering this fact in the light of 
the above details, can any sane man doubt that the 
same plan by which Rome destroys the people, is 
here pursued with more malignant subtlety ; until, 
by the time the victim is made a priest, he has ceas- 

* Tract on Maynooth by Eugene Francis O'Beirne. 



308 THE onnE. 

ed to be a man. and by this spiritual Medusa is 
turned into stone ? You think this picture colored 1 
It must be the reverse. Unless Maynooth is a very 
den of corruption, will you inform ns how its priests 
are usually so bad ? or where they learn their wick- 
edness? How else can you explain that they so 
generally go in raw youths, and come out social fire- 
brands 1 We care not what annual reports of May- 
nooth may say : they are its reports — its " living 
epistles :" and if you would know assuredly what its 
teachings are, you need only look to their practice. 
Behold their very countenances ! — what specimens 
commonly of the " human face divine !" And if you 
pronounce the scowl that sits on a villain's brow to 
be just the mirror of his bosom — the collective 
daguerreotype of the thousand dark thoughts of his 
soul — say. is this " index of the mind" to be read 
backwards in the priest's case only ? Is he the only 
exception to the laws of physiognomy ? And think 
you was the artless face of the boy transformed into 
the " down look" of the priest by nothing but seven 
years' converse with his G-od ? — or that deep scowl 
from which infant innocence would instinctively flee, 
acquired by naught but scenes of heavenly rapture ? 
And what shall we call it ? — credulity % fatuity ? or 
that sheer depravity which has so strong an affinity 
for whatever is depraved % which to this hour de- 
fends or palliates the monstrous sin of the world's 
most Protestant nation endowiug such a college? 
And this, when ignorance of Roue's iniquitous de- 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 309 

signs can no longer be pleaded. — when, from its re- 
cent agitations, the cesspool of Popery is now send- 
ing up its stench over Europe. — when, by our late 
premier's own confession, the ranks of darkness, led 
on by Rome, are now preparing to close in around 
Protestant England ! This, too, when not only have 
the blessings Maynooth was to yield us not been 
realized, but- we have had instead unmitigated curse, 
— when, in place of rearing doves, as was promised 
us, it has only been hatching cockatrices, — and when 
even the cowardly plea of fear of the priests can no 
longer be urged, since they are fast growing utterly 
powerless, and will in a few years have completely 
lost their sting ! 

Nor is Maynooth merely aided by the nation — it 
enjoys an amount of favor which is denied our very 
best universities. There you see an extensive pile 
of building, enclosed in a park of 100 acres, with 
gardens, walks, and play-grounds ; containing num- 
berless apartments for professors and students, be- 
sides dining-hall, chapel, and library of 10,000 vol- 
umes ; with a staff consisting of a president, vice- 
president, bursar, two deans, librarian, Dunboyne 
prefect, and ten professors ; not to mention a train 
of servants, including a butcher, baker, and brewer — 
and all maintained at the public cost ! And there 
you find 500 students, generally of the lowest class ; 
their cabin costume exchanged for a black suit, with 
long black gaiters ; and themselves, from having in 
their humble homes " cultivated letters on a little 



310 THE CURE. 



oatmeal,' 1 now amply supplied with smoking joints 
and potations of ale, and receiving besides £20 a-year 
of pocket- money ! ! Why, if the strength and glory 
of the British empire were bound up in those 500 — 
if they were destined to be her shield and stay, in- 
stead of her tormentors, they could not be the ob- 
jects of more bountiful regard. And while these 
embryo pests of society are thus dandled on the lap 
of royal favor, how many of its future ornaments 
are left to ply the trowel or the shuttle one half of 
the year in order to support themselves at college 
the remainder ! Can the history of folly present 
anything like this? The world's most Protestant 
nation supporting Popery ; and the very worst kind 
of it, Irish Popery ; and in the very worst form, a 
college — not the hornets, but the nest to hatch 
them in ! This nation, continuing the grant de- 
spite the utter failure of all the ends for which it was 
given ; increasing it, too, as the mischief increases ; 
and, in 1845, permanently endowing it with £30,000 
a-year ! Ay, and now liesitating to withdraw this 
endowment, despite the clearest proof that by its 
continuance they are only fattening the tiger which 
thirsts for their blood ! In a word, the most free 
and enlightened nation in Europe fostering the 
worst form of darkness and despotism ; the great 
patroness of all good, nursing Satan's masterpiece 
of evil ; and the most sagacious of nations continu- 
ing to rear the viper just after it has disclosed its 
deadly designs by making a dart at her bosom ! ' 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 311 

And what are the pleas we hear urged for this 1 
v - Popery is the prevailing religion in Ireland. 1 ' 1 
Yes, and so is Hinduism in India ! a But we ought, 
to show some kindness to our Roman Catholic 
brethren" What ! by cherishing the delusion which, 
according to your own creed, is soul-destroying ! 
'■•But they are poor, and need, a college" They who 
have thirteen colleges in Ireland, including Carlow 
and Clongowes, need another! — and they who can 
raise any sums for mischief, and have now factiously 
commenced a Popish university, cannot support it I 
"O, but they contribute their share of the revenve, 
and it is just they should get a share like otliers." 
Have we not shown that Protestantism gains, and 
Popery costs the nation far more than the amount 
of all our endowments together ? And because the 
former gets back a fraction of what it gains the 
country, the latter, forsooth, must be endowed for 
impoverishing it ! "But, tlien, the nation is pledged 
to this grant." And suppose it were so, if we pledge 
ourselves to what dishonors God and destroys the 
country, verily the sooner we break our pledge the 
better ; for such a pledge we had no power to 
make, and the sin is in the keeping, not the break- 
ing of it. But the allegation is utterly false. Till 
1845, this grant was annual — abundant proof that 
before that elate there could have been no pledge ; 
since tlien, it rests on a mere Act of Parliament, 
and a thousand better acts have been repealed ! 
A.nd, as is well known, that act — hurried through 



312 THE CURE. 



the legislature, our readers will guess why — was 
passed, as Sir R. Peel admitted, in the face of a 
reclaiming nation, only 17,000 individuals having 
petitioned for it, while 1,284,000 petitioned against 
it; so that if ever there was an act which the very 
justice they talk of required to be repealed, it is 
this offspring of our violated constitution ! But 
what is that cry which comes from a very different 
quarter 1 ? ' 'By withdrawing this grant™ say some 
of our Protestants, -yoir/f endanger all endow- 
ments." Well, and suppose it were so, have you 
really, in the dazzle of your endowment, lost sight 
of the honor of your God ? But we assert it is just 
the reverse. The greatest danger to an endowment 
that is right in principle, is to place alongside of it 
one that is wrong. And so, has not the Maynooth 
grant given the Voluntary his best argument 1 Only 
let all endowments be righteous, and the strongest 
plea against them would cease ; but it is this indis- 
criminate support of truth and error that lias fur- 
nished the strongest handle to the adversary. There- 
fore, let Protestants beware ! " The path of duty 
is the path of safety ;" and should any such motives 
of God-dishonoring selfishness weaken their opposi- 
tion to this grant, their wisdom may prove their 
folly, and their sin provoke the Most High to send 
the evil it was designed to prevent. 

Then let us arise and demand the repeal of this 
suicidal act, regardless of the canting cry which 
Rome may raise of " intolerance" and " persecution." 



• 



TREATMENT LEGISLATION. 3 1 ! 



Intolerance, forsooth ! So, then, not to help is to 
hinder, not to pension is to persecute ! You detect 
a man foully abusing your hospitality, and, while 
eating your bread, forming a design against your 
life; and instead of sending him to prison, you 
merely tell him he must no longer sit at your table 
— and that is persecution ! ! This, too, from Rome 
—who, while demanding toleration from all men, 
denies it to all men. — will not tolerate a Protestant 
chapel within the gates of her capital, — lately refused 
a Protestant stranger a grave to bury his wife in. — 
and is even now banishing those of her subjects who 
would dare read the Bible to the pestilent swamps 
of Maremma ! Ay, and some of our Protestants 
are found to echo the cry, and prove their fitness 
for the office of " guardians of toleration," by the 
strangest partialities for its deadliest foe ! If we 
sent Wiseman back to the Flaminian Grate, and 
required that till a Protestant chapel were allowed 
in Rome, not a Popish one should stand in London ; 
and that till the Bible were free in Italy, the Bre- 
viary should be banished from England ; — if, in 
short, we demanded measure for measure, would 
Rome even then have any right to complain? We 
must, then, plainly teach her — and all her Protes- 
tant abettors, too — that she has good cause to be 
thankful we now ask so little : and that should our 
rulers continue to trifle with the feelings of a Chris- 
tian nation, it is not with this humble measure of 
defence they will be satisfied. No ; as sure as 



314 THE CURE. 



delayed justice increases a people's demands, will 
they require more sweeping legislation. Men are 
beginning already to ask whether it is right to toler- 
ate a system which will tolerate none but itself; or 
safe to endure a thing which will endure nothing 
else. And should the question come to be, not 
whether Popery should be supported, but whether 
it should be suffered, the responsibility of raising it 
will rest with the men who shall now resist the 
nation's moderate demands. 

And should rulers continue to disregard the na- 
tion's voice, then, fellow-Christians, will another duty 
devolve on you, which, we believe, you have long 
most grievously neglected. You have, in times past, 
allowed Satan to choose the rulers of these Chris- 
tian lands, and thus entailed incalculable mischief 
on the Redeemer's cause. Had you always done 
your duty, and chosen G-od-f earing men to represent 
you, what might now have been the country's state ? 
How many a glorious cause have you toon over the 
land and lost in the Legislature ! Was not this the 
case with this very Maynooth endowment? Yes, 
here has been one fruitful source of all our calami- 
ties. As if we were not bound to serve God in the 
State as well as in the Church, in our capacity of 
citizens as well as of saints, we have let the govern- 
ment of this Christian country fall into the hands 
of men whose highest rule of conduct is unprincipled 
expediency, and who, for their own despicable ends, 
continue to provoke Heaven's judgments by giving 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 315 



her power to the beast. Then, fellow- Christians, 
arise, and no longer commit the sin of allowing such 
men to rule over us, nor the folly of taking such 
trouble about meetings and petitions, to have botli 
disregarded by your own representatives. But take 
a lesson from Rome's election struggles ; and take 
warning by the Catholic Defence Association, who 
seem fully resolved to fill the next Parliament with 
their tools, at whatever cost to the country of blood 
and violence. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 

Here is the grand hope of Ireland ! It is little 
after all which Parliament or even the public can 
do. They can, at the best, but facilitate somewhat 
the flow of the tides of salvation in our land, as the 
wind sometimes increases the tides of our harbors ; 
but in both cases the grand influence must come 
from above. Popery, like its father the devil, can 
only be foiled by " the sword of the Spirit," and de- 
stroyed by the " breath of God's mouth, and the 
brightness of his coining." But, as has been truly 
said, Ireland has never yet had its Reformation. If 
history can be relied on, never was country more 
neglected by clergymen and laymen. Many a par- 
ish is still strewn with the wrecks of ministerial un- 



316 THE CURE. 



faithfulness ; and when '•' God uiaketh inquisition for 
blood," dread will be the reckoning of many a hire- 
ling pastor and godless Protestant ! Oh ! how- 
many a minister has given too much ground for the 
charge of caring only for the fleece ! How many a 
layman has been more sinful, with less excuse than 
Rome's worst votaries ! And how often have both 
exhibited religion, not in its own lovely aspect, but 
the grim features of bigotry, or the marble coldness 
of death ! True, the priests have poisoned our coun- 
trymen, but we have starved them — they have 
u shamefully handled" them, but we have " passed 
them by on the other side." Yet you wonder the 
Irish still remain unevangelized ! But, blessed be 
God, a better day has dawned, and now almost 
every denomination has begun to do something for 
Ireland. 

The Instruments. — For the reader's informa- 
tion, we shall notice the principal organizations. 
1st, The Independent Body, composed of the mem- 
bers of the Congregational Union and the Irish 
Evangelical Society, and consisting of 24 ministers 
and missionaries, actively employed in various parts 
of the country. 2d, Lady Huntingdon's Connec- 
tion, employing a number of Scripture readers, un- 
der the direction of ministers of various denomina- 
tions. 3d, The Ladies 1 Hibernian Female Sehool 
Society, which annually expends about £2000 in the 
religious and general instruction of female children. 
&th, The Irish Society, for instructing the native 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 317 



Irish through the medium of their own tongue, 
established in the year 1826, supported by members 
of the Church of England, and at present employing 
59 readers and 719 teachers. 5th, The Scripture 
Readers' Society, established in 1822, and at present 
employing 84 readers, and expending upwards of 
£2000 a year. 6th, The Irish Island Society, con- 
nected with the Established Church, which employs 
about 25 readers and teachers on the islands and 
coasts, and has brought the gospel within reach of 
about 13,000 souls. 7th, T/ie Sunday School So- 
ciety for Ireland, which, since its establishment in 
1809, has disseminated 954.122 copies of the Scrip- 
tures, with 114.286 portions, and 1,400,935 Scrip- 
ture reading-books, &c. This admirable society 
numbers at present about 3000 schools and 226,000 
scholars. 8th, The Hibernian Bible Society, which, 
from its commencement in 1806, has issued 1,913,857 
Bibles, Testaments, and portions. 9th, The Reli 
gious Tract Society for Ireland, which, since 1819, 
has issued near 10,000 books and tracts, and estab- 
lished 1,162 depositories and lending libraries. 
\0th, The Primitive Wesleyan Connection, which 
has at present near 50 circuit preachers, and 40 
missionary agents in Ireland. Wth, The Hibernian 
Wesleyan Society, containing 158 preachers, 25 mis- 
sionaries, and 62 schoolmasters. With the labors 
of both these societies, we are intimately acquainted ; 
and find it impossible to speak of them in terms of 
sufficient praise. We have traced them through 



318 THE CURE. 



almost every part of the country, and found them 
penetrating its wildest regions, and holding up the 
lamp of truth in its darkest corners, regardless alike 
of persecution and privation. 12th, The Irish Bap- 
tist Society, containing at present about 24 ministers 
and missionaries, who are actively laboring in various 
parts of the country. 13th, T)ie Church Educa- 
tion Society for Ireland, which, in 1851, had 1882 
schools, and 108,450 scholars on the roll, with an 
average attendance of 64,647. 14^, T/ie Home 
Mission of the Irish Presbyterian Church. This 
church at present consists of 5 synods, 36 presby- 
teries, 522 ministers, 483 congregations and mission 
stations, and about 750,000 souls. Within the last 
16 years, it has planted about 160 new churches in 
destitute localities; established a number of mission 
stations and out-stations in the south and west ; 
supported from 300 to 400 Irish and English mis- 
sion schools, in which upwards of 20,000 Roman 
Catholics have been taught to read the Scriptures ; 
and circulated large numbers of Bibles and tracts in 
Popish districts. There are, besides, 25 Reformed 
Presbyterian ministers in Ireland, and 15 or 20 dis- 
tinguished by the name of Seceders. 

Of course, it is impossible to give full details of 
the operations of so many societies. We must con- 
fine ourselves to those of the two chief Protestant 
Churches of Ireland, and let these serve as samples 
of the labors of the remainder. One of the princi- 
pal agencies of the Established Church is tJve Irish 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 319 



Society. Before the famine of 1846, there were 
supposed to be 3.000,000 of Irish-speaking Roman 
Catholics in the country. And this society, availing 
itself of their proverbial attachment to their own 
simple and beautiful language, has extended its 
operations through many parts of the country, and 
been blessed with much success. The wonderful 
power of the Irish tongue on the Irish heart, and 
hence the influence of this agency, may be judged of 
by the following anecdote. Some years ago, when 
one of its most active members was preaching in the 
courthouse of Athlone, four priests stationed them- 
selves at the door, and commenced taking down the 
names of those Roman Catholics who entered. This 
kept the people back for a little. But having col- 
lected in force, they made a rush to the door, and 
the priests were not only borne down, but carried 
before them into the building ! The candles had 
just been lighted, and one of the priests coolly re- 
sumed the task of noting the names of the people. 
This being observed by one of them, he called out 
— " Mr. Gregg, can you preach in the dark as well 
as in the light?" "I can," was the reply. In a 
moment every candle was puffed out, and the people 
were enabled, in spite of the priest, to hear the glad 
tidings of salvation. We can only now find space 
for one instance of this society's success. Amongst 
the leading persecutors of its teachers at Kings- 
court, some years ago, was Mr. Nolan, the young 
coadjutor of the parish priest. His inflammatory 



320 THE CURE. 



harangues having mainly led to the murder of one 
or two agents, he was obliged to remove to a neigh- 
boring village ; and there he commenced to study 
the Scriptures, the better to fit himself for the 
defence of Rome. The goodness of God arrested 
the persecutor ; he soon read himself out of the 
errors of Popery, and that furious bigot became one 
of the most devoted servants of God. 

Two of the most interesting colonies in Ireland 
are Dingle, in the county Kerry, and the island 
of Achill, in the county Mayo ; both connected with 
the Established Church. In the year 1831, the 
Rev. George Gubbins was appointed curate of 
Dingle. At this time there was in the district 
neither church nor school-house ; and this excellent 
man lived in a cabin at one shilling per week, and 
had stated services in the private dwellings around. 
In about a year after, the district was visited and 
fearfully ravaged by the cholera. There being no 
physician to apply to, Mr. Gubbins became phy- 
sician-general to the poor ; and his kindness during 
a crisis so awful won the people's affections, and pre- 
pared the way for the harvest which soon followed. 
In 1833, the Rev. Charles Gayer arrived in the dis- 
trict ; the following year several of the inhabitants, 
including two Popish priests, renounced the Romish 
faith ; upwards of 150 families have since followed 
their example. Some time ago, the colony consisted 
of 800 converts ; and notwithstanding the brutal 
persecution to which its present excellent missionary, 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 321 

Mr. Lewis, has been subjected, and the extensive 
emigration of the people of that district, it now con- 
sists of 1200. Amongst the many cheering instances 
of the Divine blessing on the labors of these mis- 
sionaries, we may mention that of Mr. Moriarty, the 
present curate of Ventry, who was once a bigoted 
Romanist, and went on one occasion into a congre- 
gation on purpose to disturb them in their devotions ; 
and who, while waiting for the moment when he 
should commence his interruptions, received such 
impressions from the truth he heard, as ultimately 
led to his conversion. 

Achill is the largest island on the coast of Ireland. 
It stands on the extreme west of Mayo, is washed by 
the billows of the Atlantic, and consists of mountain 
and bog, interspersed with small patches of culti- 
vated land. Being visited with famine in 1831, the 
Rev. Edward Nangle took charge of a cargo of pota- 
toes sent to its relief. Having found the people 
willing to listen to the truth, he conceived the de- 
sign of founding amongst them a colony on the Mo- 
ravian plan ; and, with the full countenance of the 
principal proprietor of the island, and the cordial aid 
of numerous Christian friends, he soon after founded 
'• the Colony of Achill." A wild tract of moor has 
now been reclaimed, and a number of cottages have 
been erected upon it for the colonists ; a neat church 
and school-house stand in the interesting little vil- 
lage : several families and individuals have renounced 
the errors of Popery ; the young generation are 

21 



322 THE CURE. 



growing up a different class of beings from what 
their progenitors were : the sides of the once barren 
mountain are now adorned with cultivated fields and 
gardens ; most of the island has lately been pur- 
chased by the friends of the colony, at a cost of 
£17,000 ; and thus the gospel will in future have 
"free course and be glorified" in a spot which for 
ages has slumbered in the midnight of Popery ! 

The Home Mission of the Irish Presbyterian 
Church has two departments of operation — the one 
is entirely devoted to the evangelization of Roman 
Catholics ; while the other aims to supply the spir- 
itual wants of the Protestant population generally, 
and the Presbyterian especially. The mission to 
Roman Catholics is again divided into two branches, 
one to the E iiglish-sjieaking and the other to the 
Irish-speaking Romanist. The Birr mission is an 
example of the former. It was commenced in 1840; 
and owed its existence to the singular circumstance 
of a congregation of Roman Catholics having, with 
their pastor, spontaneously sought connection with 
the Irish Presbyterian Church. 

The Rev. Messrs. Crotty, the priests of Birr or 
Parsonstown, King's County, had long entertained 
doubts of the soundness of their system ; and their 
final renunciation of it was brought about by the 
following circumstances : — The " holy oil" with which 
extreme unction is performed, must always come 
through the hands of the bishop. But the Messrs. 
Crotty having had some dispute with their diocesan, 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 323 

in order to avoid the necessity of applying to him 
for oil, began to study the Scriptures in quest of 
some other channel through which to obtain it ! 
There they found that bishop and presbyter were 
terms to signify the same office. This discovery led 
them to search the divine volume with redoubled 
eagerness ; and the result may be easily guessed. 
They soon got rid of " holy oil" altogether — the 
" holy water" shortly followed — the " candles" by 
and by disappeared — the confessional came next to 
be closed — and the " mass" itself was finally abolish- 
ed. Thus did these two cousins grope their way, 
step by step, out of the delusions of Popery, with 
the lamp of truth their only guide, until its last en- 
closure was passed. But being unable to lead their 
people out of error as fast as they themselves felt 
bound to travel, every new reform caused a new se- 
cession ; until, from a large congregation with which 
they set out from Rome, they could only muster 
about a hundred followers when they arrived at the 
end of their toilsome journey. In 1839, William 
Crotty, with the congregation, joined the Presbyte- 
rian Church ; and in the following year, Dr. Car- 
lisle of Dublin, undertook the superintendence of the 
" Birr Mission." It now consists of a congregation 
of converts, with an average Sabbath attendance of 
about 70 individuals, flourishing Sabbath schools of 
about 127 children, with 136 scholars in the daily 
schools. About 500 Roman Catholic families are 
visited by the readers ; and so promising is this field 



*r 



324 THE CURE. 



of labor, that Dr. Wallace, a young Scotch physi- 
cian, has for some time been laboring as medical 
missionary in the neighborhood. 

The principal agencies of our mission to the Irish- 
speaking Roman Catholics, are the Irish mission- 
ary, the Irish Scripture reader, said the Irish school. 
The latter consists, not of children assembled in a 
school-house during certain fixed hours, but of per- 
sons of all ages and both sexes, assembled to learn 
the Irish Scriptures in each other's houses, generally 
after the toils of the day. And 3011 might see these 
little groups of mountain peasants during the long 
winter nights around their blazing bogwood fires, 
reading in " their own tongue the wonderful works 
of Grod !" A better proof of the blessed fruits of 
these schools it is impossible to furnish, than what 
is found in the following anecdote. About 1 4 years 
ago, there dwelt a young zealous Romanist on the 
mountains of Tyrone. Being a youth of talent, he 
held frequent discussions with the Irish teachers of 
the district ; and that he might be thoroughly fur- 
nished for the controversy, he commenced to study 
the Scriptures. The more he studied, the more he 
doubted; and such were his mental struggles, that 
he would spend hours at a time on the solitary 
mountains behind his father's house, in such agony 
of thought and prayer, that the cold sweat would 
break on his temples. At length he resolved to go 
to Stewartstown to hear the Rev. Robert Allen 
preach. His text on that occasion was, " And the 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 325 

Spirit and the bride say come," &c, and little did 
lie dream the results that were to follow that ser- 
mon. He drew the bow at a venture — the Most 
High directed the arrow — and the young man left 
the church a Protestant, and we trust a Christian 
He was taken up by a few Christian ladies, educated, 
and at length ordained. And that young peasant is 
now the Rev. Michael Brannigan. one of the most 
honored instruments in the great missionary move- 
ment at present going on in the province of Con- 
naught, and of which we now proceed to give a brief 
account. 

Until the period of the late famine, our church's 
mission to Irish Romanists was. like all its sister in- 
stitutions, progressing steadily but slowly, and ex- 
periencing the peculiar difficulties of this field of la- 
bor. But while that fearful calamity was sweeping 
thousands to the grave, a most remarkable change 
began to take place in the minds and conduct of 
many of the people ; mainly owing, under God, to 
the softening influence of affliction on their hearts, 
and the kindness shown them by Protestants during 
their trials. Not only were our missionaries admit- 
ted to the cabins of those who before would have 
shut their doors against them, but so anxious for in- 
struction had they apparently become, that wherever 
a new school or preaching station was opened, it was 
crowded by young and old. The result lias been, 
that, for the last six years, the mission has flourish- 
ed so wonderfully, that, in the district of Mayo alone, 



326 THE CURE. 

embracing an extent of 50 square miles, many thou- 
sands of young and old have been gladly receiving 
the Word: and, by the united testimony of all our 
missionaries, the glorious work seems to be capable 
of an almost indefinite extension. While almost all 
our mission districts have been favored as the scenes 
of more or less awakening, three have attracted pe- 
culiar attention. The first and largest is in Mayo 
and Sligo, the second in Roscommon, and the third 
in Kerry, in the province of Minister. And nothing 
can be more interesting to the friends of Ireland 
than a brief sketch of the plan of operation adopted 
in these districts. The old missionary system pur- 
sued in Ireland has long been felt to be beset with 
difficulties. It has been found that the minds of the 
adult population are so stereotyped in ignorance and 
vice, that little can be done to expand or elevate 
them ; that, besides, they are usually so poor as to 
need relief, and that this often tempts them to 
hypocrisy, and exposes us to the charge of bribery ; 
that the priests, by hindering our converts from get- 
ting employment, have often forced them to aposta- 
tize or to emigrate, and thus have sometimes scatter- 
ed to the winds our fairest missionary fruits ; and, 
moreover, that the people are usually so degraded as 
not to see the advantages of a mere literary educa- 
tion, and so bigoted as to be hostile to a Scriptural 
one. It was therefore conceived, that our chief at- 
tention should be turned to the young, while yet 
their minds were soft and plastic ; especially young 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 327 

females, on whom, as the future mothers of the race, 
its destinies, under God, so much depended ; and 
that if to the literary and Scriptural element, were 
added such industrial training as would enable 
them to earn their own bread, we could multiply our 
schools to any extent amongst that starving people 
and not only defy the persecutions of the priest, but 
obviate the necessity for gratuitous relief, ivith all 
its evil consequences ; and, finally, that we could 
thus eradicate the worst habits of the Irish, as idle- 
ness, begging, Sfc, and implant instead the princi- 
ples of independence, self-reliance, and self-support. 

Accordingly, in the above districts, nearly 100 
Scriptural and industrial schools have, within the 
last six years, been established. About one half of 
these belong to the " Belfast Ladies' Committee," 
whose president is Dr. Edgar ; and the remainder 
are supported by congregations and individuals of 
various denominations throughout the United King- 
dom, and superintended by the Rev. Robert Allen, 
Rev. T. Armstrong, Ballina, Rev. William Chestnut, 
Tralee, and 12 other missionaries of the Irish Pres- 
byterian Church. They contain about 5,000 schol- 
ars in all, some of whom are boys engaged in farm- 
ing operations, &c. ; but the great majority are girls, 
employed in knitting, netting, crochet, sewed muslin^ 
&c. And it is the unanimous testimony of numer- 
ous friends from England and Scotland, who have 
visited them, that they are just such an agency as 
suits'* the present condition of the Irish ; meeting at 



328 THJE CURE. 



once their temporal and spiritual wants, and uniting 
the advantages of the educational, industrial and 
Spiritual schemes, which we have noticed in a pre- 
vious chapter. Indeed, the transformation they have 
already wrought on these creatures is almost incred- 
ible ; and all that seems necessary to renovate the 
whole country in 20 years, is to bring its rising 
generation under their benign influence. Those chil- 
dren who, some time ago, were in rags, with their 
faces often swollen from hunger, and their entire 
condition little better than that of savages, are now 
earning near £5,000 a-year ! Some of them receive 
4s. and 5s. a-week ; many are the sole support of 
their parents and brothers ; and Dr. Edgar's last re- 
port of the Belfast Ladies' schools in Connaught, 
entitled, "Woman's Work and Woman's Worth," 
abounds with instances of the beneficial results of 
the system. In one of the Kerry schools, superin- 
tended by the author, three little girls are at present 
earning more than their father and two brothers, 
though these are in constant employment ; and the 
cleanliness, diligence, and general improvement of 
the scholars, is truly gratifying to behold. But if 
the reader would see the full effects of this admira- 
ble system, let him pay a visit to Ballinglen, county 
Mayo, under the able superintendence of Mr. Allen 
and Mr. Brannigan. On one side of the romantic 
glen he will see a large model farm, supported by 
kind friends in Scotland, on which boys, who were 
lately running wild through the mountains, are now 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 329 



receiving the best Scriptural, literary, and agricul- 
tural education : on the other side stands a female 
industrial school, in which girls who, some time ago, 
were in a state of wretchedness scarce conceivable, 
are producing the most elegant specimens of embroi- 
dery, &c. ; in the centre stands a neat new church, 
weekly filled by a congregation, who. six years since, 
were degraded Papists, and had never seen a Bible ; 
the entire district, which was then a scene of utter 
misery, has undergone the most marvellous transfor- 
mation : and we are rejoiced to add, that means are 
now being taken to purchase the whole glen and 
found therein an extensive Model Industrial Insti- 
tute for the province.* 

The Requisites. — Such, then, is Ireland's evan- 
gelistic machinery — sufficient, you would say, for 
even her conversion. Then what can be the cause 
that perhaps in no country has the work of grace 
until recently got on more slowly? We have al- 
ready given the principal cause. We have had the 
machinery, but have been deficient in the moving 
power. And we are firmly persuaded that all that 
is at present necessary to pentecostal success is sim- 
ply pentecostal devotedness. The order of heaven 

* There is a <1 eply interesting and successful mission in 
county Gal way, conducted by Rev. Mr. Dallas, and other 
ministers of the Established Church ; but as its plan ditfers 
in nothing from the other missions prosecuted by that church, 
our brief space hinders us from giving a detailed account 
of its operations. 



330 THE CURE. 



is, " I will bless thee, and make thee a blessing." It 
is only those that have freely received, who can 
freely give ; and God has usually honored men ac- 
cording, not to their gifts, but their graces. But, if 
ever there was a work which pre-eminently required 
the Spirit of Christ on the part both of churches 
and ministers, it is ours. Perhaps there is not be- 
neath the sun a field of labor in which one is more 
forcibly taught the utter impotence of human ef- 
fort, and the special need of divine aid. 'Tis here 
we are made to feel the whole force of the sublime 
but humbling sentiment, " Not by might, nor by 
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." and per- 
suaded we are that every requisite necessary to secure 
triumphant success even in it is more deep-toned 
apostolic piety. What we chiefly want is that un- 
quenchable spirit of love to Jesus and to souls which 
glowed in the breast of a Paul and a John. This 
would give us men ; and constrain our ablest minis- 
ters, instead of aspiring to the highest places in the 
church, to envy the missionary his hard lot, and say, 
u Here am I, send me." This would give us means 
— then would our people, instead of giving a little 
from much, give much from a little — then would 
those drains of selfishness be cut off, but for which 
the rich could give vast sums, and the poorest could 
give something — ay, then would be heard from our 
treasurers the words which once gladdened Moses' 
ear, " The people give much more than enough for 
the service of the work." This, too, would inspire 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 331 

our churches with that spirit of instant prayer for 
our missions, which would conduce more to success 
than all the wealth liberality could bestow. And 
oh ! how painfully have we missionaries often felt 
the need of this amid the wild bogs of Connaught 
and the dreary solitudes of Kerry, shut out from 
the counsel and intercourse of our brethren in Christ, 
and obliged to face, single-handed, a thousand diffi- 
culties ! 

How much more successful we might have been, 
had we always been sustained by the wrestling pray- 
ers of the whole church ! And how many an appeal, 
which only fell on our countrymen's hearts cold and 
evanescent as snow in the sea, might have kindled in 
their breasts the spark of heavenly love ! Fellow- 
Christians ! if Paul needed the church's prayers, 
how much more do we ! No field of labor more 
forcibly reminds one of our Lord's striking words, 
" This kind cometh forth by nothing but by prayer 
and fasting ;" and now the abundance of our toils 
and success, instead of tempting you to intermit this 
great duty, more urgently demands its observance ; 
for the greater sacrifice laid on the altar, the stronger 
the fire which is required to consume it. This, too, 
would inspire that faith so indispensable in a work 
in which our best schemes have so often failed, and 
our brightest hopes been blasted — that divine faith 
which, amid all our disappointments, enables us to 
endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and recollect 
that His word cannot return void ; which, even when 



332 THE CURE. 



doomed to mourn the apostasy of some over whom 
we had long travailed, enables us to remember, that 
though Israel be not gathered, still He will be glo- 
rified, and thus the grand object secured ; and 
which, as the ark of our hopes floats restless and un- 
easy over the moral deluge which now submerges 
our country, assures us that the waters will in due 
time subside. Yes, and by faith would we not effect 
as brilliant achievements as ever ancient saints per- 
formed ! It is this glorious grace, which, when 
other principles of benevoleuce are faint and lan- 
guid, or half-quenched by vexing disappointments, 
still keeps the heart fixed on Jesus as the author 
and the end of all we do, and enables us to pursue 
the same evenly course of humble devotedness, 
whether we experience success or failure, thanks or 
ingratitude. Let minor motives rise or fall as they 
may, beneath the power of this heavenly faith, our 
grand one remains the same ; and we move on in 
the path of duty to our Master, like the planets 
which continue their course round the sun, and 
scarce feel the disturbance of the thousand stars that 
surround them. This, moreover, would inspire us 
with that wisdom so peculiarly needed in a field so 
arduous. The mismanaged Protestantism of bygone 
days has left our missionaries a vast inheritance of 
difficulties. And we have not only to contend with 
the consequent prejudices of the Papist against the 
Sassenach, so artfully embittered by an envenomed 
priesthood, but the proverbial difficulties winch al- 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 333 

ways attend the reocciqiation of an old field that has 
been spoiled in the cultivation, and the evangeliza- 
tion of a race when the best time for enlightening 
them has passed away, and the tides of opportunity 
are at least half-run — a race, moreover, whose singu- 
lar mental conformation requires so much careful 
study and skilful treatment. 

Thus might we proceed, at almost any length, 
and show that every requisite we need is embraced 
in, or flows from a revival of religion. But our 
space will only permit us to notice one other grace, 
which in no country is more required, yet perhaps 
in none is less practised than in Ireland ; and that 
is, divine charity. It is a distressing fact, that 
our missionaries sometimes meet more hindrance 
from their own brother ministers, than from the 
Popish priests ; and that there are some amongst us 
who have not even the Puseyite's plea, but hold the 
same evangelic views, and profess the same love to 
Jesus and to souls, who yet act as if they would 
rather let millions perish than be saved by other 
hands than their own. We are willing, in part, to 
excuse them, on the ground of early prejudice. Some 
of our dear brethren grow up in the belief that tfieirs 
is tJte church, and all others are schismatics ; that they 
are the clergy -, and all others are intruders ; and that 
it were as reasonable to trespass on their farms as 
their parishes. Their own sections of the church 
bounds the horizon of their thoughts and affections. 
To hear them at their public meetings, you would 



334 THE CURE. 



think there was neither church nor missions in the 
world but their own ; and while loudly disclaiming 
the charge of Posey ism, they either positively con- 
sign the honored churches of Knox, of Owen, and 
of Wesley, to God's " uncovenanted mercy," or speak 
of them as, at Lest, mere excrescences on the " tree 
of life !" These men have long been a grievous 
affliction to Ireland. Their conduct has operated 
as a perpetual blister to their brethren of other 
churches ; proved the grand hindrance to every 
catholic movement amongst us ; given priests and 
Papists reason to laugh amongst themselves ; and 
done the Saviour's cause immeasurable mischief. 
And never can we expect the Divine blessing on 
our common Protestantism till this Protestant 
Popery is put away from amongst us ; till we get 
wholly rid of a class of men who smell so strongly 
of the Romish priest, and whose very look often 
reminds one of the monastic cell — men who substi- 
tute crotchets for conscience, bigotry for piety, and 
ecclesiastical hauteur for the humble spirit of Jesus. 
We speak thus freely, because we love their church ; 
we have ever been her warm friend ; and we have, 
in this volume, proved our regard. We know how 
severely we will be censured for not giving "the 
abuses of the Irish Establishment" a place amongst 
the causes of our country's present darkness. For 
the sake of brotherly concord, we are willing to bear 
the blame, and cheerfully make this sacrifice on the 
great altar of Protestant harmony. For we feel 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 335 



that now, when the forces of darkness are combined, 
and the forces of light are elsewhere combining — 
when everywhere there is so much danger, and in 
Ireland so much hope — our great motto ought to 
be, "Quts separabzt ,•" and that the man who, be his 
plea what it may, would continue the strife which 
has too long disgraced Irish Protestants, is, what- 
ever his profession, the enemy of the cross of Christ. 
We speak thus plainly, for the sake of our common 
faith ; for of none has Satan made more use against 
it than such men, who will not see the difference 
between co-operation and compromise — who read 
our Lord's prayer backwards. " That they all may 
be one" — who " rebuke" and shun all who " follow 
not with them" — and who, while boasting of theirs 
as the Catholic Church, act as if bigoted exclusive- 
ness were its truest mark. 



And now, fellow-Christians, a word ere we close. 
Are you aware of the dangers that menace you 1 
The sudden revolutions of 1843 made some think 
the millennium had dawned unawares ; but we would 
recommend the portentous change which has since 
occurred, as a useful study to those who, regardless 
of all history, are accustomed to despise the efforts 
of Rome. Her priests may be as stupid as they 
think them to be ; but is this the character of their 
Great Adviser ? How often have those acts of Rome, 



336 THE CURE. 



which Protestant simplicity has viewed as " blun- 
ders." turned out to be mere feints! and it much 
depends, indeed, on Protestants themselves whether 
the late aggression may not prove one of these. 

The man who knows the prodigious progress Rome 
has made for the hist fifty years, and the stupendous 
efforts she is now putting forth and yet would de- 
spise any move sho makes in her deep and dreadful 
game, must be given over to strange infatuation. 
Have we not seen her seizing the chief seats of 
learning in England, and from thence deluging the 
land with disguised Popery? Has not her staff of 
Popish priests in that country increased, during the 
last 60 years, from scarce 50 till now there are 

EIGHT HUXDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT, with their full 

complement of schools, colleges, convents, and 
chapels 1* Has not the Popish population of Great 
Britain, in the same time, grown in proportion ? 
Has not Popish influence for years virtually con- 
trolled the legislature, and ruled the empire? Have 
we not seen Popery, during the last three years, 
rolling back, by its own single arm. the tides of 
progress over broad Europe ; shrouding the bright 
sun of the nineteenth century with a deep eclipse : 
and causing her creatures of night to creep forth in 
the gloom, as though it were really the midnight 
of the twelfth 1 And is it amid such warnings of 
Providence^ enforced as they are by those of proph- 
ecy ', that any Christian can sit careless and secure ? 

* Catholic Directory, 1852. 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 337 

Is it when a drama of awful grandeur is being 
enacted around us, when the elements of society are 
in a fermentation perhaps unparalleled, and when, 
on a due infusion of the gospel into the seething 
mass, it must mainly depend whether the issue will 
be putrefaction or purification, — is it at such a time, 
fellow-Christians, that any of us shall be found sleep- 
ing, whose special duty it is to preside over the pro- 
cess, and direct its course? 

Christians of Great Britain ! you owe our country- 
man much for your past neglect, and something, too, 
for his past services. Side by side with his British 
comrade has he pressed forward in the ranks of death, 
with that daring courage which is peculiarly his own. 
And when you have employed him in work less honor- 
able, has he served you with less fidelity ? Are not 
those canals and railways which are the monuments 
of your greatness, memorials, too, of his humble toil ? . 
Then will you aid in sending him that gospel which 
has so exalted you, and the lack of which has kept 
him so degraded? Extend our franchise till every 
babe has a vote ; drain our country to its mountain 
tops ; increase your grants till we live on your 
bounty, — and all must be vain while the poisonous 
vapors of error and vice are steaming up over the 
whole land, and blasting every seed of improvement 
you sow. And think you that you have but little 
interest in the issue ? See how Irish Popery is per- 
vading your senate, drenching your country, flooding 
your colonies, and threatening terrible retribution 

22 



338 THE CURE. 



for your past neglect. How few of your large towns 
have not now an " Irish quarter ?" Are not Irish 
Papists covering your fair land like locusts? and 
these, too, the very worst class, who can neither 
cross the ocean nor exist at home. Are they not 
at this moment the chief drains on your taxes, con- 
tributors to your crimes, and corrupters of your 
moral atmosphere? You have tried every means 
to get rid of the nuisance, hut in vain. In Liver- 
pool you established a quarantine, in hope to keep 
them back : but found that as reasonably did Canute 
command the waves to retire. From London you 
sent them home in droves, to return in greater force 
by the very next tide. Then finding it hopeless to 
get quit of them, you have next tried to enlighten 
tliem, and been driven by the stern requirements of 
self-preservation to establish Irish Toivn Missions 
. in various cities ; but you have found it utterly im- 
possible to overtake by any such agency the swarms 
that are fast gathering around you. 

Yet vast as their influx now is, it threatens daily 
to increase ; so long as Ireland continues to sink, 
will they continue to fly from her — and Britain is 
their nearest asylum. Do you not see new hordes 
daily encamping amid your civilization, like Be- 
douins amongst the columns of Palmyra, or Goths 
amid the gardens of Italy ? And do you not by 
this time perceive that either you must do some- 
thing to save Ireland, or she will do much to destroy 
you ? Once it was a question of mere benevolence 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 339 



— it has now assumed a much graver form. If the 
pauper statistics of Manchester be a fair sample of 
those of your other large towns, then is the one half 
of your paupers Irish; and while, since 1846, Eng- 
lish pauperism has. in that town, increased but 7 per 
cent,, Irish pauperism has, in the same time, grown 
above 300 per cent ! ! Yet, what is the mere finan- 
cial curse to those more deadly moral ones which 
these wretched beings are inflicting upon you ! 
Therefore, we repeat, you must for your oivn sakes 
take up this question as you have never yet done. 
It is sheer folly to cry, " We are sick of Ireland ;" 
— if you take not our advice, you will assuredly 
have cause to be still more sick of her. There 
stands this great moral marsh by your side; and 
you have your choice to help us to drain its putrid 
waters, or take the consequences in the pestilence 
and death which must follow its poisonous exhala- 
tions. British fellow-Christians ! we implore you, 
shake off that security which, amid all those perils, 
permits your rulers to foster Popery ; ay, and shel- 
ter those Jesuits whom even Popish countries have 
expelled. Else the star of Britain's glory, which 
rose with the Reformation, may have reached its 
zenith, and be destined ere long to go down. May 
Grod avert the day ! But should Britain continue 
to favor the " whore," we are persuaded it is not re- 
mote ; for never yet did country partake of " her 
crimes" without also receivii ; of " her plagues." 
&nd truly mournful it would I if the future histo- 



340 THE CURE. 



rian should have to trace to Irish Popery the decline 
and fall of the greatest empire on which the sun 
ever shone is the circuit of his glorious way — if he 
should have to tell how Britain permitted the viper 
to grow unmolested by her side, and even coming to 
think its nature changed, began to fondle and caress 
the dangerous creature, till soon as it found itself 
strong enough, then true to its venomous instincts, 
it turned and stung to death the too unsuspecting 
bosom which had nourished it into vigor by its 
warmth ! 

Nor is it the inhabitants of Great Britain only 
who are interested in Ireland's fate — it concerns a 
large portion of the civilized world — for what has it 
long been but a nest and nursery of Popery sending 
forth its annual swarms of wretched beings to infest 
the remotest regions of the globe ? Along the 
rivers of America, by the lakes of Canada, on the 
plains of Australia, you meet them in droves. It is 
said that 20 years ago there was, in the latter coun- 
try, but one solitary priest ; and that now, with Van 
Diemen's Land, it contains 200 priests, 18 bishops, 
and 1 archbishop! But especially is America con- 
cerned in this matter. Our deliverance is emphati- 
cally her danger. To us there is little to dread from 
the present Popish " exodus," but the risk of its ces- 
sation ; but what is to us a ground of hope, is to Iwr 
one of deep solicitude. 

Emigration, which is withering the arm of Popery 
in Ireland, is strengthening that of Popery in Amer- 



THE TREATMENT—EVANGELIZATION. 341 

ica ; and the priests are consoling themselves with 
the belief that what is lost to them here, is more than 
gained there — that here their flocks are beggars, but 
they will there become wealthy citizens — and, above 
all, that the free institutions of that country will en- 
large their powers of mischief. Americans, beware ! 
You are yet confident, but you know not Popery as 
well as we do, and God grant you never may ! How 
can you overlook the alarming fact^ that the hordes 
of Irish Papists who are landing daily amongst you, 
must needs corrupt your moral atmosphere, and that 
from the nature of your constitution, your country's 
only bulwark is the virtue of its people ? Then learn 
in time from Ireland's ruin what is America's grand 
danger ! Do you not know that Rome has her 
deadly eye on your young colossal republic ? That, 
next to England, you have the largest place in the 
thoughts and councils of her Propaganda? And, 
above all, that she cannot endure a republican gov- 
ernment 7 Has she not in Franco contrived to make 
the name of a republic a terror to the friends of or- 
der, and in every Popish land a satire and burlesque 
on the name % Yet think of the audacity of Hughes, 
who chooses the hour of Home's most dreadful cru- 
sade against Europe's freedom, to tell you that she 
is the parent of liberty and the nurse of republican- 
ism ! ! ! liberty shrinks at the touch of this mon- 
ster, and bursts enraged from its embrace as from a 
ruthless violator. Then, Americans, beware ! The 
serpent which has so long sought to nestle in the 



342 THE CURE. 



mane of the British lion, in hope to sting it to death, 
is stealthily creeping towards your Eagle's eyrie ; 
and she that lately closed your chapel in Rome, now 
clamors the loudest amongst you for the rights of 
citizenship — the better to enable her to rob you of tliem 
all ! Long may your banner float side by side with 
England's flag ! Long may both nations continue 
together their glorious onward march, dispensing 
blessings to all mankind, — rivals only in the race of 
honor and benevolence, and divided by nothing but 
the ocean that rolls between ! But this, be assured, 
can only be so long as both shall hold fast those 
Reformation principles which are the source of all 
their greatness, and be prepared to defend, if need 
be, with their blood that divine legacy left to the 
one by her martyred " worthies," and to the other by 
her " pilgrim fathers." 

Protestant countrymen ! had we done half our 
duty, our country had long since been evangelized ; 
and instead of reaping the bitter fruits of our sin in 
a polluted atmosphere, a ruinous taxation, and mis- 
eries manifold, we would now have been blessed in 
our country's blessedness. But we have lived to 
witness a gracious revival, and can now point to 
thousands of as lovely samples of grace in Ireland as 
may ever be seen on this side glory ; who possess 
the faith without the fame of martyrs, and will stand 
very near the throne above, and take rank amongst 
the highest aristocracy of heaven. To such we now 
appeal. Beloved friends ! never did the sun of hope 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 343 

beam on us more brightly than now. What wonders 
has God of late wrought amongst us ! How have 
his recent judgments broken priestly power, disarmed 
Romish prejudice, hushed the agitator's voice, and 
turned upon us the eyes of Christendom ! 

The dense clouds of Popery are rising off our 
land, and the beams of heaven begin to gild her 
mountains. Our heroic missionaries are bearding 
the beast in his stronghold ; that gospel, which ele- 
vates the most degraded, is beginning to take away 
the Irish Celt's reproach among men, and waking his 
mind from the sleep of ages ; and those noble germs 
of Irish character whose growth Popery has for cen- 
turies hindered, like seeds in the mummy's cold 
hand, how wonderfully they are now springing to 
life so soon as touched by the quickening rays of 
the Sun of Righteousness ! Nor is this all. God 
has pleased, by means of the famine, to commence 
a social revolution amongst us, which promises to 
effect the country's renovation. Irish Popery has 
ever relied on its numbers — and, to increase these, 
has encouraged early marriages, and availed itself 
of the potato's productiveness. But how vain its 
craftiest devices, when God chooses to mar them ! 
He smites the potato, and its strength becomes its 
weakness — its people, who had multiplied like sum- 
mer insects, vanish like them too — its supplies are 
cut off — its priests are starving — its chapels are be- 
ing emptied — and its arm is withered ! And it is a 
matter of easy enough calculation that, if things go 



344 THE CURE. 



on for some years, as, to all appearance, they now 
must do, Popery in Ireland is inevitably doomed. 
It would seem as if God had resolved to clear out 
the country in order to replenish it anew. The 
land is rapidly passing into British hands. With 
the emigration of the Irish, there has commenced an 
immigration of the Scotch and English ; and numbers 
are only waiting the adjustment of the land question 
in order to come and settle amongst us. Thus God 
is renovating the country hj the double process of* 
driving Popery beyond the ocean, and bringing Prot- 
estantism from across the channel. We grieve to 
see our countrymen leaving us ; but who that wishes 
them well for either world, would bid them stay % 
By remaining, they starve — perhaps eternally perish 
— and certainly perpetuate the miseries of their 
race. By going, they better both themselves and 
their country ; for they go from bondage to liberty 
— from hunger to plenty — from horsewhipping priests 
to where they may read the Bible, and no priest dare 
frown. Therefore, we say to them — " Go, in the 
name of the Lord ! If you conduct yourselves 
well, we shall some day hear of you — and how 
changed you will be ! Quickened to life by sur- 
rounding Protestantism you will be seen felling the 
forests, cutting canals, building railways, rising to 
comfort, and, best of all, perhaps walking with God. 
Then go, and the Lord be with you !" Yes, to 
Ireland there ariseth light in the darkness. Provi- 
dence Himself is at work — breaking up our present 



THE TREATMENT EVANGELIZATION. 345 



wretched social framework to construct out of the 
ruins a fairer fabric. We cannot arrest the process. 
nor should we if we could. It is just the self-right- 
ing laws of the universe at work — God's wisdom 
and goodness rectifying man's guilt and folly. And 
it requires, we are persuaded, no seer's eye to behold 
through the vista of coming years, when this revolu- 
tion is past, Ireland looking out as from a new crea- 
tion, like the young vegetation on the moors, that is 
quickened by the very fires which late have swept 
over them ! 

Roman Catholic countrymen ! we have been plain 
with your worst enemy, the best proof of our love to 
you. You cannot suspect us of any sordid end — for it 
is too late to enter a field which the most artful dema- 
gogue has had to quit in despair. Oh ! we come not 
to strip but to relieve the dying ; and surely the mes- 
senger of peace may approach unsuspected when 
even the spoiler is seen to retire. Can you think 
those priests your true friends, who so uniformly 
turn your ignorance to their own advantage, and 
have never benighted where they have not enslaved ? 
And, will you trust your souls to men with whom 
you would seldom trust your substance 1 — and re- 
fuse even to inquire till it is too late to amend ? 
Then, by that brilliant mind too long enslaved, and 
that generous heart too long imposed on, exert the 
birthright God has given you, and judge for your- 
selves, as you must answer for yourselves. Nor 
think your priest alone will be accountable if you 



346 THE CURE. 

continue to follow him blindfolded to ruin, any more 
than would your guide alone be the sufferer if you 
allowed him to lead you over some fatal cliff. And 
you, their blind guides ! — you must soon meet them 
at that judgment-seat, where your very best apology 
shall be, — " We did it ignorantly in unbelief." If 
we admit your honesty, it must be by denying your 
intelligence — fearful alternative this, between igno 
ranee and imposture ! 0, behold the fruits of your 
dreadful diligence in the wreck of the finest people 
the great Creator ever formed ! And think you, 
shall that mockery of justice, which so often sullies 
our earthly tribunals, that punishes them, and pen- 
sions you, tarnish the purity of the Great White 
Throne ? No, he who robs men of the key of knowl- 
edge, shall there at least be held accountable for all 
the consequences : that ignorance which will be their 
palliation, shall constitute the main count in your in- 
dictment ; and whatever punishment may on this 
ground be deducted from their sentences, must neces- 
sarily be added to yours. And are you prepared for 
a reckoning so awful ? If not, even for you there is 
hope — and this is the crowning proof of God's bound- 
less love. The grace which arrested Saul of Tarsus, 
was designed as encouragement in cases so desperate ; 
and that miracle of grace may again be performed, 
which made c: a great company of the priests obe- 
dient to the faith." 

THE END. 



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Isle of Wight 40 

Pithy Papers 40 

Pleasant Tales. Illustrated 40 

North American Indians 40 

OPIE on -Lying. New edition. ISmo, illustrated 40 

OSBORNE (Mrs.)— The World of Waters ; or, a Peaceful Pro- 
gress o'er the Unpathed Sea. Illustrated. 16mo 75 

OWEN on Spiritual Mindedneas. 12mo 60 

FALEY'S Hora3 Paulinse. 12mo 75 

PASCAL'S Provincial Letters. New edition. Edited by Dr. 

McCrie. 12mo 1 00 

PASTOR'S DAUGHTER. By Louisa Pay son Hopkins 40 

PATTERSON on the Assembly's Shorter Catechism 50 

PEEP OF DAY. New edition 30 

LINE UPON LINE. New edition 30 

PRECEPT ON PRECEPT. New edition 30 

PIKE'S True Happiness. 18mo 30 

Divine Origin of Christianity. 18mo 30 

PHTLTP'S Devotional Guides. 2 vols. 12mo 150 

Young Man's Closet Library 75 

Marys, or the Beauty of Female Holiness 40 

Marthas, or the Varieties of Female Piety 40 

Lydias, or the Development of Female Character 40 

Hannahs, or Maternal Influences on Sons 40 

Love of the Spirit 40 

POLLOK'S Course of Time. Elegant ed. 16mo. Portrait 100 

Do. do. gilt, extra 150 

Do. do. Turkey morocco, gilt 2 00 

Do. do. 18mo. small copy, close type 40 

Life, Letters, and Remains. By the Rev. Jas. Scott, D.D... 1 00 

Tales of the Scottish Covenanters. Hlustrated. 16mo 75 

Helen of the Glen. ISmo. Illustrated 25 

Persecuted Family. " " 25 

Ralph Geminel!. " w 25 

PORTEUS' Lectures on Matthew. 12mo 60 

POWERSCOTT'S (Lady) Letters. 12mo 75 



PSALMS IN HEBREW. 32mo, gilt 5C 

RETROSPECT (The). By Aliquis. 18mo 40 

RICHMOND'S Domestic Portraiture. Edited by Bickerstoth. 

New and elegant edition. Illustrated. 16mo 75 

Annals of the Poor. 18nio 10 

ROGER MILLER ; or, Heroism in Humble Life. With an In- 
troduction, by Dr. Alexander. 18mo 30 

ROGER'S Jacob's Well. 18mo 40 

ROGERS— The Folded Lamb ; or, Memorials of au Infant 

Son. Himo 60 

ROMATNE on Faith. l2mo 60 

—Letters. 12mo CO 

ROWLAND'S (Rev. H. A ) Common Maxims of Infidelity 75 

RUTHERFORD'S Letters. With Life by Bonar 1 50 

RYLE'S Living or Dead ? A Series of Home Truths. 16mo .... 75 

Wheat or Chaff? 75 

SCOTT'S Force of Truth. 18mo 25 

SCOUGAL'S Works. l8mo 40 

SELECT WORKS of James, Venn, Wilson, Philip, and Jay. . . 1 50 

SELECT CHRISTIAN AUTHORS. 2 vols. 8vo 2 00 

SERLE'S Christian Remembrancer. 24mo, gilt 50 

SINNER'S FRTEND. 18mo 25 

SIGOURNEY'S (Mrs. L. H.) Water Drops. Illustrated. 16mo.. 75 

Letters to my Pupils. With Portrait. 16mo 75 

Olive Leaves. Illustrated. 16mo 75 

Boys' Hook. Illustrated. 18mo 40 

Girls' Book. * " 40 

Child's Book. " " square 35 

SINCLAIR'S .Modern Accomplishments 75 

Modern Society 75 

Charlie Seymour. 18mo. Illustrated 30 

SIMEON'S LIFE. By Carus. With Portrait. 8vo 2 00 

SMITH'S (Rev James) Green Pastures for the Lord's Flock... 1 00 

SMYTH'S Uereaved Parents Consoled. 12mo 75 

SONGS IN THE HOUSE OF MY PILGRIMAGE. 16mo. 75 

SORROWING YET REJOICING. 18mo 30 

Do. do. 3-Jmo, gilt '30 

SPRING'S (Rev. Dr.) Memoirs of the late Hannah L. Murray. . 1 50 

STEVENSON'S Christ on the Cross. 12mo 75 

Lord our Shepherd. 12mo 6G 

STORIES ON THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND OTHER 

TALES. By the Author of « Edward and M iriam." 

SUMNER'S Exposition of Matthew and Mark. 12mo 75 

SUDDARDS' British Pulpit. 2 vols. 8vo 3 0C 



CARTERS' PUBLICATIONS. 11 



SYMINGTON on the Atonement. 12mo 75 

TACITUS' Works Translated. Edited by Murphy. 8vo 2 00 

TAYLOR'S (Jane) Hymns for Infant Minds. Square. Illust.... 40 

Limed Twigs to Catch Young Birds. Square. Illustrated.. 50 

Life and Correspondence. 18mo 40 

Contributions of Q. Q. With eight tinted illustrations 1 00 

Display, a Tale. ISmo 30 

Mother and Daughter 30 

Essays in Rhyme. 18mo 30 

Original Poems and Poetical Remains. Illustrated 40 

(Isaac) Loyola ; or, Jesuitism in its Rudiments 1 00 

— ■ Natural History of Enthusiasm. 12nfo 75 

(Jeremy) Sermons. Complete in 1 vol. 8vo 1 50 

(Thomas) Life of Hannah More 60 

TENNENT'S Life. 3>mo, gilt 25 

THOLUOK'S Circle of Human Life. 18mo 30 

TURRETINE'S Complete Works, in the Original Latin 

THE THEOLOGICAL SKETCH BOOK. 2 vols. 3 00 

THUCYDIDES' History of the Peloponnesian War. 8vo 1 25 

TUCKER — The Rainbow in the North. A short account of the 

first establishment of Christianity in Rupert's Land. Illus. 16mo. 75 

TUTTLE— Memoir of William. By his Nephew. 16mo. Port't. 75 

TURNBULL'S Genius of Scotland. Illustrated. IGmo 100 

- — Pulpit Orators of France and Switzerland I 00 

TYNG'S Lectures on the Law and Gospel. With Portrait 1 50 

Christ is All 8vo. With Portrait 1 50 

Israel of God. 8vo. Enlarged edition 150 

Recollections of England. 12mo 1 00 

A Lamb from the Flock. 18mo 25 

WATERBURY'S Book for the S.bbath. 18mo 40 

WAUGH— Memoir of the Rev. Alexander Waugh, D.D. By Drs. 

Hay and Belfrage. 12mo 1 00 

WEEK (The)— Comprising the Last Day of the Week, the First 

Day of the Week, and iho Week Completed. Rust, llhno 75 

WHATELY'S Kingdom of Christ and Errors of Romanism 75 

WHITECROSS'S Anecdotes on the Assemb!) 's Catechism 30 

WHITE'S (Hugh) Meditation on Prayer. 18mo 40 

- — Believer ; a Series of Discourses. 18m <> 40 

Practica' Reflections on the Second Advent. 18mo 40 

(Henry Kirne) Complete Works. Life by Southey 1 50 

WILBERFORCE'S (Wm.) Practical View. Large type. 12mo. 1 00 

WILLIAMS, (Rev. John,) Missionary to Polynesia, Life of 1 00 

WILSON'S Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life. 16mo. DJus- 

trated from original drawings 7f 



12 CARTEKS' PUBLICATIONS. 



WINER'S Idioms of the Language of the New Testament 2 50 

WTNSLOW on Personal Declension mid Revival 66 

JMidiiiglit Harmonies ; or, Thoughts for the Season of Soli- 
tude and Sorrow, lfimo-... GO 

WTLLISON'S Sacramental Meditatione and Advices. 18mo 50 

WYLIE'S Journey over the Region of Fulfilled Prophecy 30 

XENOPHON'S Whole Wo, tea. Translated k 2 08 

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts. 16mo. Large type, with Portrait.. . 1 00 

Do. do. extra gilt 150 

Do. do. Turkey morocco, gilt 2 00 

Do do. 18mo, close type 40 



ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

Would iuvite special attention to the following New Books, whicn 

will also be found under their appropriate heads in the foregoing 

pages : 

AMERICA AS I FOUND IT. By Mrs. Duncan, author of the Me- 
moirs of Mary Lundie Duncan, &.c. lfimo. 

LECTURES ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. Delivered 
at the University of Virginia, by eminent Clergymen of the Presby- 
terian Church. 8vo. Pi portraits. 

HENCSTF.NBERG on the Apocalypse. 

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM TUTTLE 

THE FOLDED LAMB. 

PRANK NETHERTON; or, the Talisman. 

CHARITY AND ITS FRUITS. By Jonathan Edwards. 

FAR OFF; or, Asia and Australia Described. By the Author of the 
" Peep of Day," &c. Illustrated. 

KITTO'S Daily Bible Illustrations. Evening Series, 4 vols., uniform 
with the Morning Series. 

WHEAT OR CHAFF ? By the Rev. J. C. Ry le. 

MAN— HIS RELIGION AND HIS WORLD. By Bonar. 18mo. 

SONGS IN THE HOUSE OF MY PILGRIMAGE. 

CHRISTIAN DUTY. By John Angel James. 



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